Remy's Diabolical Plan
by ElvenMuggle
Summary: Remy, being the evil mastermind that he is, comes up with a diabolical plan. He enlists Rogue's help in polishing himself for the woman he wants…And Rogue has no idea that the woman is her.
1. Remy's Diabolical Prologue

**Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction using characters from the X-men world, which is trademarked by Marvel. I claim no ownership over any of the characters or locations that you may recognize and am making no money from writing this.  
**

**Remy's Diabolical Plan**

**Chapter One: Remy's Diabolical Prologue**

**~X~**

Once again, Remy was watching Rogue with more fondness that she realized. Of course, this was normal. She never realized. No one really did, except for Kitty.

When Kitty had first noticed this she had immediately pointed it out to Rogue. But for some reason or the other, Rogue hadn't believed her and had simply assumed that it was just because it was Remy and Remy seemed like everything with a pair of breasts and two legs. She had actually convinced Kitty of this at one point. But then Kitty had started noticing more. Probably because she was nosy and bored and had nothing better to do so she had started watching Remy. She watched with intent curiosity at the little things he did. Some things he didn't seem to notice that he did them at all. Other things he did on purpose.

Kitty had observed that he blatantly went out of his way to see Rogue, to be in the same room with her, to talk to her, to make her laugh anytime she was around. Sometimes at night during dinner, it was a scramble to get to the food. Remy always seemed to be there first, making sure Rogue was able to get some even before he did. He did little things like opening doors and pulling out chairs, and carrying anything that she couldn't. But these were the things that he did on purpose. There were also the things that maybe he didn't even notice. But Kitty had. When Remy spoke to Rogue, his voice would suddenly hold a softer note. His eyes would twinkle the tiniest bit and he always seemed to be smiling. He always went out of his way to be nice to her, and inevitably they had become friends.

Just friends.

But then of course life isn't all lollipops and rainbows. Not everyone is perfect, and no one could ever hope to be. As nice as Remy was to Rogue, and as much as they liked each other, there was one thing that the two of them couldn't seem to stop doing.

They fought _constantly_. And it was never over anything serious. It was always over the most utterly ridiculous things that no one else on the planet ever argued so fiercely about. And that's exactly how their fights were. Fierce and ugly and loud and so stupidly annoying that it had the rest of inhabitants of the X-mansion wanting to bang their heads against the wall. Which, by the way, they did very often.

Well, to be more precise, their heads and the wall got abused quite often because Remy and Rogue argued _everyday_. Sometimes twice, sometimes three times. But the upside was that eventually they would both get over it, and to be honest with themselves, they couldn't clearly remember what they had been arguing about in the first place. So they always went back to being friends.

And unbeknownst to Rogue, Remy wanted more than that. It might have helped matters a great deal if he had just come out and said it. But he didn't. Mostly because he feared the rejection. Of course he had flirted with Rogue when he had first come to live in the mansion, though at that time he hadn't meant anything serious by it, and Rogue hadn't taken it seriously.

But then slowly, over time, he had begun to like her more and more and then one day…one day he had his 'aha' moment.

He had been bored that day—excruciatingly so. So he went to find Rogue, who was always a good source of entertainment whether they were fighting or getting along. He spotted her out of the upstairs window, sitting out on the lawn. She was casually sitting next to a tree, her back to the trunk and a book in her lap. This was a completely normal thing and nothing was out of the ordinary.

But for some reason, Remy got a very strange feeling in the pit of his stomach. A first he thought it was the chili cheese fries that he had eaten the night before, come back to reek havoc on his insides. But the longer he watched Rogue, the more he came to realize that the feeling in his stomach was not the chili cheese fry kind of feeling. It was more pleasant, yet still gripping and terrifying. And the light coming down from heaven and shining all around Rogue was certainly not normal. He was positive that he had never seen that before, not on Rogue or any other woman. Nor had he ever felt such a strange pull to anyone, such a strong need just to be near them and spend time with them.

Obviously, he was in love. He had simply blinked in surprise at this revelation, thought, '_Hm…How interestin_', and then went out to spend time with Rogue. It had just seemed like the natural thing to do at the time. He couldn't very well run out on the lawn, profess his undying love for her, and expect her to react in kind.

So he had held it in, relishing just in the time that he had with her, enjoying her company, and wishing inside that he had more. Over more time he became aware of all the different reasons that he had suddenly fallen for Rogue. After observing her more, Remy wasn't sure why he had never noticed all these things before. One of the million reasons he loved her was because she was beautiful and didn't seem to notice it at all. The only effort she really put into her appearance was to brush her hair and put on clean clothes, but it was enough. Another reason was the way her jaw clenched when he said something that she disagreed with. And because she was the worst driver to ever grace the planet. And because when he had first joined the X-men, she was the first one that had made an effort to bond with him, despite their past. And because she was NEVER on time for anything. And because of how grumpy she looked in the mornings. Rogue hated the mornings and her eyes would always be half closed and for some reason her hair would always be sticking up in the back, defying gravity.

But the thing that Remy loved the most was when he got to see her fight. He had always loved to fight—but now he enjoyed missions for a whole other reason. Rogue was brave and courageous and dived head first into a scuffle without flinching. He loved the way her hair spun when she delivered a kick to someone's torso, the way the blood beautifully splattered around her when she broke someone's nose, the looks on the faces of big, bad men when they saw a tiny woman running at them…The last mission they had been on, Remy had nearly had his head taken off because he had been to busy watching her beating the Blob over the head with a two by four.

Rogue was apparently completely blind to his affections, though Remy wasn't sure if he was glad about that or not. But either way, it didn't matter…because he had plan.

A very interesting, complex, and diabolical plan, of course. Anything less just wouldn't have screamed Remy LeBeau, and that just wouldn't have done.

He hadn't come up with the plan on his own. No, he had stolen it completely. Now _that_ screamed LeBeau. He had innocently been in Kitty's room one day, searching through her things and trying to find the fruit snacks that he _knew_ she had taken from him, (no matter how many times she denied it) when he had found something very interesting. It was many things, actually; a collection of things.

Kitty had a secret stash of erotic novels. At first, Remy hadn't planned on doing anything about it…other than telling EVERYONE…but then he changed his mind when he saw a particularly interesting cover, consisting of a shirtless man with big, manly nipples on display, clinging onto a beautiful woman who was bending over backwards in his arms. The woman's cleavage was about to fall out of her shirt and the look on her face was one of pure ecstasy. So naturally, Remy thought it seemed like a good book.

So he took it.

Over the next three days and he learned a few things as he read it. First off, despite its genre, it wasn't all that bad. It had a very interesting and gripping storyline. Second, he picked up a few extremely corny lines that he hoped to use later on with Rogue, just to see the incredulous look he got in return. And thirdly, the leading male in the book had come up with a very unique way of getting the woman he desired to fall in love with him. He made her think that he was in love with another woman, and asked the one that he really loved to help him become the perfect man. Of course, not everyone's version of the perfect man is the same so eventually, the woman that he was in love with had made him into what _she_ wanted and had fallen for him. So then after he confessed his 'love' for her they had hot, steamy sex for thirty pages straight.

That turned out being his favorite part of the book.

It was too bad that it had to end. But eventually, after he had finished reading, the wheels started to turn in his head. Was it possible that he would be able to pull a similar stunt with Rogue? Maybe, if she let him know what it was about him that kept her from feeling the same way, he could change it. Maybe he could get Rogue into such a jealous frenzy that she would just throw herself at him. Maybe after he made her fall for him too they could make love for thirty pages straight. Maybe he had been reading too many erotic novels.

His plan would no doubt hold a thousand different lies but hopefully by the time it had come to completion, Rogue would be so in love with him that she couldn't see straight and she wouldn't care that he had lied.

It occurred to him more than once that he could just simply say to her how he felt. He could always ask her out, take her to a nice restaurant, and completely sweep her off her feet. Or he could act like a third grader and send her letter. That was a favorable idea. Or he could just hire a bunch of dancing midgets to come serenade her when she was least expecting it.

That was his favorite idea.

But even though he had all of these GREAT ideas, Remy decided on the one that would take the most work, the most effort, and the most time. And he was pretty sure that his diabolical scheme would be the surest way to Rogue's heart. Once it was over and done with it, it wouldn't matter that he had lied and schemed to get her. All that would matter was Rogue loved Remy and Remy loved Rogue…or at least this was how he hoped it would go.

He had yet to set the plan in motion. He wasn't quite sure exactly what he was waiting for, but he knew that any day now he would be ready…any day.

**To Be Continued...**


	2. Diabolical Undergarments

**Remy's Diabolical Plan**

**Chapter Two: Diabolical Undergarments**

**~X~**

Rogue took a deep, unsteady breath. Chewing her lip, she fought for control over her mind. So many thoughts raced through it, all of them giving her different scenarios, different escape plans, and all new ways to break out of this mess. But every time she thought that maybe she had figured it out, her mind brought her back to one ending.

She was going to die. One wrong move and she was dead.

Ok, so maybe _dead_ was stretching it a bit. But if she made the wrong move right in this critical moment she would almost certainly be subjected to _painful, horrible, excruciating, unbearable_…teasing. And that was something that she was not willing to give in to. She would NOT let her friends conquer over her in this game of _Clue_. No! She had never won the game of Clue and she was determined to win it now. Remy's turn came after her and she was certain that he knew the answer. He knew who had committed the murder, and with what weapon, and in which room. And Rogue couldn't let him win. She refused to. She was only ninety five percent sure that her answer was correct, but her turn came before his and she wanted to win so she had made a random guess.

Now she held the envelope with the answer inside. She could open it now, look at the answer…and if she got it wrong, then she lost and the game would keep going without her and then Remy would almost certainly win. But if she got it right, she won and could rub it in everyone's faces. She had to think over her answer and she had to make sure it was right.

Glancing down at her paper of 'clues', Rogue knew that the person that had committed the murder was most certainly Colonel Mustard. Of _course_ it was Colonel Mustard. He was creepy and old and his name was Mustard. If you were unfortunate enough to have a name like that then you probably _would_ end up being a killer. The weapon he used was the candlestick, because hey, people use candlesticks to murder people with all the time. Whenever you wanted to kill someone there was always that oddly and conveniently placed candlestick just sitting around.

But what Rogue was most unsure about was the room. What room did Colonel Mustard commit his murder in? There were two choices. It was either the dining room or the lounge. The little picture on the board of the lounge looked so comfy and warm to Rogue that she couldn't imagine anyone wanting to murder in there. If they did, they would get blood all over those pretty curtains and the carpet and that would just be too hard to clean. The dining room also seemed like an unlikely place, because that was gross. Who would want to eat in there after doing something like that? If you were planning on murdering someone, you should at least do it where you weren't going to eat later.

Both seemed like bad places to kill someone and personally, if Rogue had been Colonel Mustard, she would have chosen to do it in the conservatory. Mostly because that just seemed like the place that no one would be walking into all the time. It wasn't like they were all going to jump up and say, 'Hey! Let's all go hang out in the conservatory!' Unless, of course, they grew some marijuana in there. Then, maybe, Rogue could see why everyone would be racing to get in there…not that she was into that sort of thing.

So without being absolutely sure, Rogue had made a random guess and said that Colonel Mustard did it with the candlestick in the lounge. And…now her mind was reeling in the perverted pictures she had inadvertently put there.

Rogue blinked as these thoughts flew through her head. She knew perfectly well that if she voiced that last series of thoughts out loud that she could make Kitty choke on that milk she was sipping. Though the thought was entertaining, Rogue held back since she was sitting next to Kurt, and would probably spit it all over him. Next to Kurt sat Amara and next to her was Remy. Remy was next to Rogue, looking at her like he had already won the game. But she refused to back down because she was getting that look. He was only trying to intimidate her and she wasn't going to let him.

He stared long and hard at her, causing her cheeks to flush pink at the intensity of it. Quickly she let her hair fall down over her face as she determinedly kept her gaze from locking with his. She was _not_ going to chicken out because Remy was giving her what he had once described to her as his 'bedroom eyes'. At the time Rogue had no idea what the hell he had been talking about. Now she understood a little bit. Because if he had looked at her like that when they were...in the bedroom…she might have just melted through the floor. Not that she ever thought of Remy in the bedroom. But that look made her skin tingle annoyingly, though she wasn't sure why. She supposed it was because of the new detergent she had started using in her laundry. Or maybe it was because she forgot to use fabric softener. Yes, it was probably one of those two things.

"Rogue, are you, like, ever going to answer?" Kitty finally snapped, breaking Rogue's thoughts away from Remy's bedroom eyes.

Though Kitty's tone held a bit of rudeness to it, the kind of rudeness that Rogue would usually snap back at, but the Southerner didn't even notice. She continued to stare at the little envelope in her hand, internally battling her own thoughts.

"Mhmm," she said in response to Kitty. "Ok, I guess that Colonel Mustard did it in the lounge with the candlestick…I mean," she faltered, the pink on her face quickly turning red, "he did it with the candlestick in the…ah! I MEAN…oh forget it." Finally, she slowly slipped her fingers into the envelope.

Maybe Rogue imagined it, or maybe it was really there. But a certain kind of strained tension hung in the air as she slowly pulled out the cards. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion except for her pulse, which was racing madly in anticipation. Unconsciously, she held her breath and slowly, slowly, _slower still_, turned the cards over.

"AHA!" She yelled triumphantly, standing up and waving the cards over her head. "I win! I win! Colonel Mustard did it with the—I mean, I WIN!"

Kitty grumbled and stood up to leave, giving out begrudging congratulations. Kurt just sat there, and Amara clapped politely along with Remy.

Rogue was having too much fun basking in the glory of winning a simple board game. She chased Kitty with the cards that proved she had won, and Kitty, being a sore loser, was stomping away, phasing through walls and tables to get away from her. Kurt was sighing and putting the game back in its box and Amara was standing to stretch. Remy was (of course) watching Rogue and thinking of his devious plan, but was snapped back to reality when a loud clap of thunder sounded outside.

It was summer, and so far had been hot and dry. But the weather man had promised rain and high humidity for the next few days. Rogue had just graduated from high school a week before and was enjoying the summer break before she…well, she wasn't sure what she was going to do. But for the time being all she wanted was to sit and relax (as much as one can relax when part of the X-men) and enjoy the summer. Kitty was still complaining daily that she wouldn't have anyone at the school that she knew next year (which earned her looks from Kurt and Amara who were both still in school) and then alternated to staring at Remy. Rogue was pretty sure that Kitty must have a crush on Remy and wondered if he knew. She kept thinking that if he didn't know, then it would be very weird since Kitty was always openly staring at him.

Because of this, Rogue thought Remy was kind of blind for not noticing that Kitty obviously had thing for him. Meanwhile, Kitty thought Rogue was quite daft not to have any idea that Remy liked her.

Everything else in the X-mansion was normal as always…as normal as a mansion full of mutants can be. Logan was always grouching, Storm was always storming, Charles was gliding along in his wheelchair being bald, Beast was off being smart and reading, Scott was about to start training to become a police officer, Jean was looking for a job, Kurt and Amara were being kids and having fun with the summer break, Bobby and most of the younger students had gone home to their parents for the summer, and no one even wanted to know what Tabitha was doing all day up in her room with the door closed.

Yes, everything was completely normal. There were two training sessions a day; one in the morning and then one before dinner. Every now and then they would have to run off because either the brotherhood or some other fiend was off terrorizing the city. They would go out, kick butt, and then come back home to unwind.

And as normal as everything was…Charles was going completely insane. The noise level in the house was spectacularly ear splitting and no one seemed to notice but him and an always grumpy Logan. Though Charles couldn't tell whether Logan was grumpy because of the noise or because…he was Logan.

But the noise was driving Charles crazy. His head was constantly pounding both because of the noise ringing through his ears and rattling his very brain, and because of his terrible habit of grinding his teeth together when he became agitated. He really needed to stop that habit. His dentist had warned him one too many times already and it was starting to cause him some serious problems.

And then one day—thankfully—his phone rang. He was nearly at his wits end and he was about to break. At that point in time, Charles would have done anything to ease the constant pounding in his head and so when the phone rang, and he found himself speaking to an old friend who needed a favor, Charles was only too happy to oblige.

Anything to get the kids out of the house.

He wasn't sure why his patience had suddenly run thin. He had always been able to handle the noise just fine. But he was perfectly willing to chalk it all up to age, and because he was stressed and had no hair left to pull out.

Downstairs, Rogue finally became bored of chasing Kitty and came back to plop down in her seat at the kitchen table next to Remy. Kurt, who was now sitting on the counter, had found an orange and was currently peeling it. Amara was yawning and looking out the window at the dark gray clouds overhead. Kitty was stomping back into the kitchen, looking worn and grumbling about something that sounded suspiciously like 'overzealous winners'.

It was just as Kurt had his mouth full of orange, Kitty was sitting down at the table and glaring at Rogue, Rogue was looking very smugly over at Kitty, Remy was thinking of evil plans, and Amara was hoping that no one would smell the silent fart she had just let loose, that Charles entered the room. He was followed by Jean and Scott and naturally, Scott looked all business and had his serious face on.

"Everyone…" Charles greeted them politely and was met with a few acknowledging grunts and another silent fart. "I have something to tell you all."

Everyone turned to him, waiting for him to continue.

"First of all," Charles started, "I want to say thank you. Thank you for giving your all to this team and thank you for the work, time, and heart you have all put forth. You have all turned into exceptional young men and women and I couldn't be more proud."

"Well that's all your fault, Professor," Amara said as she discreetly waved a hand behind her back. "You're too good of an influence on us."

Charles smiled lightly at the compliment and tilted his head in acknowledgment. "Even so, I think you have all earned this."

Everyone immediately perked up at once, suddenly eager to hear what he had to say.

"What do you…" Remy started before he sniffed the air. "What's that smell?"

Amara tried to look innocent. "I think its Kurt's orange…"

"Some of you may not know this," Charles continued as if there hadn't been any interruption, "but I own a few other houses other than this one…I own one on the beach…"

"Beach trip!" Kitty and Kurt yelled at the same time and both jumped to their feet.

"Really, Professor?" Rogue asked. "Are we goin' to the beach?"

Charles held up a hand to calm them. "Just…wait a moment, let me explain."

Kitty and Kurt's shoulders both slumped at the same time and Kitty turned to sit back down heavily in her seat while Kurt went back to the counter.

"Oh, so no beach trip?" Kitty asked, sounding very forlorn.

Charles sighed. "Yes, there is going to be a beach trip-"

"YAY!" Kitty jumped back to her feet again and pumped her fists in the air. "Bronze tan, here I come!"

"You mean hot beach babes," Kurt grinned as he too, came back to his feet.

"NO, Kurt," Kitty shook her head, "hot beach _guys_," she said dreamily and for a moment looked like she was about to start drooling.

"I think I'll just go for the babes," Kurt replied.

"Well you'll be missing out," Kitty said in a warning tone, "because shirtless guys on the beach offering to rub tanning oil on your back are always good fun."

Closing his eyes, Charles pinched the bridge of his nose in an attempt to fight off an oncoming headache. See, this was_ exactly_ why he had to make them leave. For the love of all that was good and holy, he NEEDED some peace and quiet! He hadn't even been able to get the whole story out before Kitty and Kurt had started up.

"I think I'll pass," Kurt shot at Kitty. "For some reason, some strange, sweaty, hairy beast man covered in warts and wanting to rub oil on my back just _doesn't_ sound appealing."

Glaring now, Kitty propped a hand on her hip and sighed in exasperation. "Kurt, they are _not_ covered in warts! And even if they were, I wouldn't let them near me when they had warts all over them! Besides," she crossed her arms over her chest, "that would be better than some half naked girl with a bosom the size of the Titanic and a bad dye job asking you to rub oil on her back!"

Kurt stared. "Ok, if you find a girl with a bosom the size of the Titanic, you let me know." He said this in a very serious tone. "And give her my number while you're at it."

"Kurt!"

"Kitty."

"AH!"

Everyone turned to Charles in surprise. He sounded very pained and _very_ annoyed. And this was VERY strange because they had never heard such a strained and sad sound come from their Professor's mouth before. He was always calm, cool, and collected. Now he looked like he was falling to pieces and they were shocked into silence.

The kitchen rang in silence and was quietly tense for a very long moment. It was almost a full minute before Charles finally cleared his throat and looked around at them all. Though he appeared to be fine now, they all noted that the smile on his face looked very forced.

"Excuse me," Charles said quietly. "I have a headache."

Everyone just continued to stare, still unsure of what they had just witnessed.

"But like I was saying," Charles continued as if nothing had happened. "You are all going to the beach. This group here…Jean, Scott, Kurt, Kitty, Remy, Rogue, and Amara. I am trusting you with the safe keeping of my house and everything inside of it. All you have to do is make sure you don't track in. Always take your shoes off before entering, don't eat in the bedrooms, keep it clean, and don't break the TV." He looked around at them all, soaking in their expressions. They looked like they wanted to say something but were too scared to interrupt him again.

"There's only one catch, of course," Charles went on. "You will live there…while you perform a mission for me."

"Oh." Kitty looked sad again as she sank back into her chair. "A mission. I should have figured that."

"If the mission goes well, you can stay there for another week," Charles added and Kitty immediately brightened.

"So what's this mission gonna be?" Remy spoke up.

"Well," Charles sighed. "It's a little out of the ordinary. I only accepted because the man who needs a favor is a good friend of mine. His name is-"iHis

"The fisherman that lives off the coast, right?" Scott asked. "We've met him, haven't we?"

No one knew what Scott was talking about but didn't say so when Charles started nodding. They didn't want their Professor to think that they didn't remember his friends…that would just be rude…even though they really didn't remember him from squat.

"Yes," Charles continued nodding. "Good, you remember him. So you know that he's a fisherman. He's having some trouble catching lobster-"

"Yum," Jean said.

"Poor lobster," Kitty muttered.

"Ah, yes," Charles said, "like I was saying…He's a fisherman, but he's having trouble. Someone keeps coming in the night and cutting through his traps-"

"What?" Rogue interrupted this time. "Who cares so much about whether he catches lobsters or not?"

"It's up to all of you to find that out," Charles said as he folded his hands in front of him. "It is also up to you all to find these crooks and turn them into the police."

"Um," Kurt spoke up, "Why doesn't your friend just call the police himself?"

"He's tried," Charles replied.

"Let me guess," Kitty rolled her eyes. "They're too lazy to investigate it or they're too busy trying to solve all the murders first."

"Probably both." Charles said seriously.

"So…" Rogue said slowly. "We take as long as we have to…out there…on the beach…in your beach house…tryin' to find some guys who want to break lobster traps?"

"Yes," Charles confirmed and everyone's eyes lit up at the thought of the whole summer at the beach. "And I'm sending Jean and Scott with you to make sure you're actually doing the job and not just taking advantage of my hospitality." Charles said brightly.

Everyone groaned. That was _exactly_ what they had been planning to do. Who cared about some guy's lobster traps when there was a beach house that they didn't have to pay for waiting to be partied in? But amidst everyone's groaning, Scott was nodding as though this were the most important mission of his life.

"You can count on us, Professor!" Scott said, somehow sounding more serious than ever before. Jean just nodded firmly in agreement.

"Alright then!" Charles clapped his hands together. "It's settled! You all leave tomorrow!"

"That's kind of quick…" Rogue remarked and Charles tried to look like he had no idea what she was talking about.

"Professor," Kitty said, "I know this is your friend and all, but I thought we went on missions to better mankind and for like…the greater good or whatever."

Charles didn't comment that the 'greater good' in this case was probably saving his sanity. If Charles completely lost it, it certainly wouldn't benefit mankind to have a mutant who was completely off his rocker and that could read minds running around town. Nope, it sure wouldn't. And this was how he justified his actions.

"You're absolutely right, Kitty," he replied, trying to sound smart and dignified. "But the X-men also exist to help those who can't help themselves."

He said this is with such an air of propriety and grace that no one argued. When Professor X talked like _that_, he must be right. No one could sound that smart and be wrong about anything. Of that, they were sure.

"What about Tabitha?" Jean asked Charles. "Is she coming, too?"

"Yes," he said, "I asked her to come down here…she said she was on her way but she was busy at the moment…" Charles looked very worried as he said this.

No one asked. Tabitha spent a good amount of her day in her room with the door closed. They all were worried about what she might be doing in there. If it were anyone else, they wouldn't have thought anything weird about it. But Tabitha was…Tabitha. Charles had thought more than once about just reading her mind to see what she was thinking about…but then he always backed out. He didn't read anyone's mind without their permission. Not only that, but he had a bad feeling that if what Tabitha was doing in her room was anything as bad he thought, then he certainly didn't want to dive into her mind. That was sure to be a house of horrors.

They all talked about what she must be doing. Some of them thought she was doing drugs, a few of them didn't care, Kitty was convinced that she was sneaking boys in there every opportunity, and Rogue was too scared to know what she was doing. Everyone was curious, but they were all too worried to find out. Remy thought the whole thing was funny and just went up to Tabitha and asked her one day. Tabitha had simply shrugged, said, 'Nothing,' and then ran away.

This only served to scare them more.

**~X~**

Rogue went upstairs and started to pack. Well, that wasn't necessarily true. She hated packing for anything with a passion. Usually if she ever had to pack a bag she waited for the last second, somehow thinking that she could avoid it. But so far she had _never_ been able to avoid it and had ended up throwing whatever was closest to her into her bag. But this time it was different. She really did need to pack all of the necessities because there was no telling how long they would end up on this mission.

Just like her other teammates (except for Jean and Scott it seemed) she hoped to be able to drag this out for as long as possible. But there was always hope that when they got to their destination that Scott and Jean would see how beautiful the beach was and loosen up a little.

This might have been the lamest mission they had ever been on, but Rogue was determined to enjoy it. As much as she looked forward to it, she was still curious as to why they were suddenly doing jobs for the Professor's friends. That wasn't something they had ever done before…All of their missions up until now had consisted of stopping mutant threats and protecting the community. But she wasn't going to complain. The beach sounded nice.

The only thing that she might complain about if she wanted to was the swimsuit she had. It had been a while since she had gone swimming and the boring green one-piece would be a tight fit. At least she didn't have to worry about deadly skin anymore. Thankfully, along with the help of Professor X and Hank McCoy, she had been able to learn to control her powers. The downside was that sometimes she lost control of it. But nowadays those incidents were few and far between and there hadn't been any accidents in a while.

Slinging her hair up into a sloppy ponytail, she stared at her empty suitcase in contempt. She really should start packing but…she _loathed_ packing. She could always wait until the last minute to do it. No…wait…that wasn't a good idea and she had to keep telling herself that. Kitty would do it. If she really went and asked her too, Rogue knew that Kitty would do it. But then she would end up with her swimsuit, toothbrush, and a bunch of Kitty's clothes to wear. So that option was out. Really, she should stop acting like a big baby and just pack the stupid suitcase. Rogue told herself this as she begrudgingly walked to her dresser and started pulling things out.

Remy chose that moment to knock lightly on the open door and then let himself in. Rogue glanced over her shoulder and sent him a light smile before going back to work. But then as an idea crossed her mind, she turned back to him.

"Hey Remy! Wanna pack my bag for me?" She asked sweetly. "I'll pay ya' five bucks."

Remy had been heading over to sit on her bed but stopped mid step. "Only five? Hm…" he whistled in thought. "Make it ten and Remy'll think about it."

Rogue inwardly sighed. She didn't have ten dollars to give him. She didn't even have five to give him. But that didn't matter; she had figured that later she would think of _something_ to give him instead. There had to be something that he wanted from her other than money.

But right now he was asking for more when she didn't have it…That meant that she was going to have to use 'the face'. It was really nothing…Rogue couldn't understand why the face worked so well. And no matter how many times she used it, Remy always fell for it. Sometimes she wondered if he resisted her just so that she would have to use the face. But it worked anyway so it wouldn't hurt to use it now.

Rogue looked down at the ground, widened her eyes, pouted her bottom lip out just slightly, and then looked back up at Remy.

He immediately closed his eyes and threw a hand over them. "No! Don't do the face!" Despite knowing that she hadn't stopped, Remy separated two fingers to look at her. Of course, she was still making it. Every second her eyes seemed to grow rounder and sadder, tugging at his heart strings and making him want to give her whatever she wanted just as long as she would stop looking at him like _that_.

"But…Remy…" She said in a sad, quiet voice. "I just need your help…Pleeeease?"

"Rogue," he groaned, knowing he was fighting a losing battle. Finally he dropped the hand over his eyes. "Fine! Just stop doin' that!"

But she didn't stop. "Will you really help? Really, Remy?"

"Yes!"

"Ok!" Rogue immediately brightened and skipped over to sit on her bed next to the suitcase. She smiled bright and cheery at him and he couldn't help but feel relieved that she had dropped the lost puppy dog look.

Sighing in defeat, Remy shuffled over to the dresser and started pulling out clothes. He didn't bother to keep them folded or neat; instead, he picked up random armfuls and then walked over to dump them into the suitcase. But Rogue hated packing too much to care. Besides, she would just look over what he had put in there tomorrow at the last second and try to fix it then…Yes, that sounded like a good plan.

"So…" Remy said casually as he opened another drawer to her dresser and grabbed several pairs of jeans. "We're goin' to the beach. How long ya think we can manage to stay there?"

"I think Jean will loosen up as soon as we get there," Rogue replied confidently. "Scott, though…we might have to make him drunk first."

"It sound like a good plan to Remy." Remy dumped the jeans into the open suitcase, unfolding them in the process.

"And I hope we can stay there for at least a few weeks…"

"Ya know," Remy said thoughtfully as he opened her pajama drawer, "there's several different ways we can manipulate this situation to our advantage."

"Meanin?"

"Meanin' we don't _have_ to work to our best potential on this mission. We could 'accidentally' let the thieves slip through our fingers _over_ and _over_ and _over_ again…"

"Aha," Rogue grinned. "Good idea. But," she bit her lip, "I don't know…intentionally screwin' the team over seems a bit harsh."

"Harsh?" Remy scoffed. "Yeah, a little more vacation time at the beach would be so _harsh_."

"You don't have to be sarcastic," she stuck her tongue out at him. "And don't put that in there."

Remy halted halfway through dropping the armfuls of pajamas into her suitcase. "Why not?"

"Oh, nothin…I sleep in the buff," Rogue said casually.

Remy gulped. He really wished she hadn't said that. There were too many lovely images to go along with her words and none of them were honorable. Didn't she know that you shouldn't say things like that to a man? Didn't she understand that the thoughts and pictures that popped into his mind at her words were not intentional? They just…appeared there. He didn't tell them to get there, they were just there…Not that he was complaining; they were very nice images.

Not only that, but he also didn't consciously mean to mentally count how many doors away her bedroom was from his. Or how many steps it might take to get there. Or how hard it might be to scale the outside of the building and peak in her window. Or wonder if her door was locked, and if it was how hard it would be to pick it.

And also…did she take her clothes off before she got in the bed, or did she get into bed and then take them off? Did she sleep with the sheet and the blanket, or nothing at all? When she started dreaming, did she kick everything off? Did she sleep on her stomach or on her back or on her side?

In his head, Remy pictured that she probably took her clothes off before she got into bed. Then she went over and unlocked the door, hoping that he might be daring enough to come visit her in the middle of the night. Then she did a few pointless exercises, which was just side bends, toe touches, and a few jumping jacks. And when she got into her bed, she didn't use any of the covers at all because she was too hot from her workout and from thinking about him.

See? This is the perfect example of why you should _never_ tell a man that you sleep in the buff. All of those thoughts had just crossed his mind quickly and without him telling them to, leaving him with big, dumb grin on his face.

Thankfully, Rogue didn't notice it. She was busy picking through her underwear drawer. Wait, her WHAT?

Remy turned his head so fast in her direction that a crick formed in his neck. Dropping the clothes, he lifted one hand to rub his neck while keeping a concentrated eye on Rogue. She was saying something…but he wasn't listening. He was pretty sure it was about the weather, but who cared about the weather when there were ladies panties begging to be looked at? Unless…it was raining ladies panties.

This thought procured another goofy grin.

But Rogue kept talking while she rifled through her drawer. Every now and then she would pull out a pair and hold onto it with one hand while searching for more with her other. Remy watched this whole process intently, mentally counting how many there were and what colors and what cuts and what materials. Why? Because he was a man. That's why.

Maybe Rogue was more innocent than he had thought. Did she honestly think it was ok to start talking about sleeping naked and then pull out all kinds of underwear in front him? Any other man might think she was coming on to him, but Remy knew better. Rogue was completely oblivious to the results her actions were causing in him.

Was she that innocent, or was he that perverted?

Remy had to agree with the latter, most definitely. Everyone had a little perverseness inside of them, no matter how much they might try to deny it. But for Rogue to act so nonchalant about all of this…either she was a master of seduction or she really didn't know what she was doing to him.

She could be that naïve. After gaining control of her powers, Remy had only seen her go out on a few dates, and every time she hadn't been all that interested and was coerced into by Kitty. Remy never asked her what happened on these dates, but every time she would go on one, she had returned early and looked happy to be home but annoyed at the same time. He never met any of these suitors but secretly hated them all with a passion and hoped that they might drive off of a cliff on the way home.

And he really had never thought of it before. But Rogue must be innocent in the strongest sense of the word. How she had managed that with the way she looked, he wasn't sure. Why her teenage hormones seemed to be under complete control and not at all raging, he didn't know. When he was her age just looking at a bed made him want to have sex. Hell, he didn't even have to see a bed. The floor was enough to get him started.

Sure, the poison skin was enough to hold anyone off. But after that wasn't any issue any longer, Remy figured Rogue would be eager to touch, but instead she was very hesitant. This might be because there was more than one accident where someone had been drained…

"-and what do we do if there's a hurricane or somethin?" Rogue was still speaking as she searched through her drawer and didn't see that he wasn't paying her words the least bit of attention. "I mean, we'll be right there on the beach, won't that be dangerous?"

"Mm," Remy grunted in reply, still transfixed by her underwear. But Rogue didn't notice and kept talking.

They were nothing really extravagant. All of them were modest and practical, but still attractive. He counted the colors in his head—and noticed that he didn't see the same color twice. White, black, tan, pink, red, green, purple, lilac, blue, aqua blue, sky blue…French cut, bikini cut, high cut, and there was some girls briefs…

And where were all her bras? Remy would very much like to see all of her bras.

Before he could put too much thought into this, Rogue turned with hands full of underwear and walked over to put them in the suitcase. Seeing that the pajamas were still there, she sent him an irritated look. Taking the hint, he picked them up, his head still swimming. He had to restrain a yelp when her hand slipped past his and he felt some of the cloth she held brush against his knuckles.

"Are you alright?" she asked, sounding concerned as she stuffed her underwear into the suitcase. "You're sweating."

Of course he was sweating. The girl was trying to kill him. Or seduce him and she was really good at pretending like this was nothing. He wasn't sure about either one of these things, but Remy knew one thing for certain. He knew that he had to get out of this room and away from Rogue before he completely lost it.

"Rogue," he couldn't help but ask something before he left. But he hadn't expected his voice to sound so strangled. "If you sleep in the buff," he nearly choked on that word as more of the images it had produced came forth again, "then why do you have all of these pajamas?"

She shrugged one shoulder as she continued to shove underwear into her bag. "I get cold in the winter…sometimes anyway."

Remy gulped.

"I wonder if we'll have to share rooms at the beach house." Rogue continued, missing Remy's eyes growing wide behind her back. "Maybe I do need to bring some of those." she motioned to the pajamas sitting on the bed. "But if we shared rooms I reckon the girls would all go into one."

At this, Remy squeezed his eyes closed tight.

"But Kitty has seen me naked more times than I like to admit and I ain't gonna add to that number." Rogue grumbled.

Remy's eyes snapped open and he openly gawked at her.

"What!" he gasped. "Why has Kitty seen you naked?"

Finally she turned and regarded him with a curious look. "Why's your voice all breathless like that?" she questioned.

"Answer the question."

"She's walked in on me dressing a few times after training sessions." Rogue shrugged and then sank back down onto the bed.

He was certain of it now. Rogue was trying to kill him.

"I have to go," he said in that same strained voice and he sprinted for the door.

"What?" Rogue looked confused by his sudden departure. "Where are you going? Remy? Remy!"

Purposefully ignoring her, Remy ran through the door and to the safety of his own room.

**To Be Continued...**


	3. Diabolical Road Trip

**Remy's Diabolical Plan**

**Chapter Three: Diabolical Road Trip**

**~X~**

The next morning Rogue woke bright and early…bright and early meaning eleven thirty. She had never finished packing the day before after Remy had left. So instead of just finishing it then, she thought it would be a better idea to just save it until the last minute and just start packing it then.

This turned out to be a not so bright plan. Since she hated the mornings already (no, it wasn't the morning anymore but she had just woken up) the normal early day irritation had set in. They were set to leave at twelve. It was eleven thirty now. Rogue still had to pack, shower, get dressed, and find something to eat because she couldn't ride in the car before she ate or else she would get car sick.

So Rogue started out her day by opening her eyes, looking at the clock, seeing the time, and cursing roundly. Despite knowing that she needed to rush, it took her five minutes to finish stretching and climb out of the bed. She ran to the bathroom, rushed through her shower, brushed her teeth, and dried her hair all in a matter of seventeen minutes. Knowing there was only eight minutes left in her time limit, Rogue ran into her room and threw on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. She laced her shoes with five minutes to spare and tied her hair up to get it out of her way as she set to work checking over her suitcase. All that had been packed was her jeans and her underwear. Growling, Rogue ran back and forth from her dresser to her bag over and over again, picking up clothes and stuffing them into the bag. After packing all of the necessary toiletries and a few books, she was ready.

There was still thirty seconds on her time limit, so without further ado, Rogue struggled to zip up her suitcase (which was carelessly jammed packed full of unfolded clothes and other random things) and then dragged it downstairs.

Everyone else that was going on this mission was already there in the foyer waiting. After tossing the suitcase down the last few steps (and narrowly avoiding nailing Kurt in the head with it), Rogue came to a panting stop in front of Scott.

"I'm ready," she said breathlessly, pleased with herself for making it on time.

Scott gave her a curt nod. "Excellent. But we're not leaving yet."

Rogue slumped in defeat. Of _course_ they weren't leaving yet. The _one day_ she was actually on time for something was the day that they chose to leave later than the designated time. This must be an evil prank that someone was playing on her. After rushing through everything and nearly killing herself doing it, it would figure that it was all for naught. Well, at least she got to eat something now. She started to turn to head to the kitchen but stopped when she thought of something and turned back to Scott.

"Why aren't we leaving yet?"

"I thought it would be wise to let the rain calm down some before we drive in it."

Looking past him to see through the glass doors, Rogue understood why he had decided this. The rain that the nice looking weather man on TV had predicted had appeared and was wreaking havoc. It was so thick and heavy that it was hard to see through and was rhythmically punctuated by booms of thunder and flashes of lightening. How she hadn't noticed any of that while she was getting dressed, Rogue couldn't understand, and she didn't want to try to. Most of the time her mind was a big, snarling mess of chaos and so therefore too hard to work through.

But at least there was time to eat. That was the only bright side to this morning. But when she turned, Rogue was met with the sight of Kurt right behind her and sending her a glare, and Remy on her left and holding out a muffin.

"Gotcha a muffin," he tossed it to her without warning but she caught it easily. "I think we'll probably stop somewhere on the way to eat," Remy said, "but I know you can't ride in the car without somethin' in your stomach. And Remy don't relish the thought of gettin barfed on."

"Oh, well thanks then!" Rogue smiled at him brightly and bit into the muffin before turning to Kurt. "Whaf ish it, Kurt?" She asked through a mouthful of food.

"You nearly killed me!" Kurt shrieked, sounding highly offended. "That suitcase missed me by inches!"

Rogue swallowed before taking another overly large bite. "I'mf shorry…"

"You're what?"

"Shforry."

"_What_?"

Finally, she swallowed. "Sorry. I'm sorry, Kurt, it was heavy and it just…slipped."

"You haven't put your heavy suitcase in the car yet?" Remy interrupted before brushing between them. He went over and picked up the offending suitcase and slung it onto his shoulder effortlessly. "I'll just take this to the car…"

Scott was standing over in front of the glass doors and looking out at the rain. His posture was straight and stern looking, as was normal for Scott, and his hands were folded behind his back. When Rogue glanced over in his direction he seemed to be mentally scrutinizing the rain with a great amount of seriousness. It was a full five minutes as they all just stood there waiting. Scott was looking out of the window, Jean was reading a magazine, Remy and Rogue were having thumb wars, Kitty was watching Remy and Rogue and shaking her head, Kurt was glaring at Rogue and muttering something about evil suitcases, and Amara and Tabitha were quietly debating over which of the Brotherhood boys butts were the cutest.

It was after the rain slowed a considerable amount that Scott nodded in approval and turned to them.

"Ok," Scott said and they all stopped what they were doing to pay attention. "I think it's safe now so lets-"

"YEAH, beach trip!" Kitty squealed and she and Kurt high fived before Kurt grabbed her wrist and teleported, presumably out to the garage where the car was.

"Wait!" Scott yelled but there was no use, they were already gone.

Charles chose that moment to come in and they all noticed that he looked _extremely_ happy. "Did I hear that it's time for you to leave?" he asked, trying not to sound too eager. Scott nodded and he continued. "Alright, just don't forget the rules of the house! Have fun, be careful, and don't forget that you are the X-men." he looked around seriously at all of them. "You fight for equality among humans and mutants and so therefore you must present yourselves with the appropriate amount of grace so that they may one day come to respect you."

Remy stopped listening somewhere around-'present yourselves with grace'-and his mind drifted to things like drinking games and how best to screw the mission up.

"You've got it, Professor!" Scott said proudly. "You won't be disappointed! We're going to kick some serious lobster thief butt!"

Remy and Rogue glanced at each other but then quickly looked away. The urge to laugh was too great.

"Very well," Charles nodded and smiled at them all. "I trust that you will give it your all. Good luck, X-men."

Rogue wasn't sure when everyone had become so very corny, but she decided to pay it no heed. She just wanted to get to the beach.

Scott nodded to the professor curtly and then headed for the door leading to the garage. He had every intention of going about this mission properly and professionally, no matter how nice a summer at the beach sounded. Next to him, Jean was thinking the same thing except she was little less enthusiastic about working while they were at a nice vacation spot. Behind everyone, Remy and Rogue exchanged evil grins. They were going to make this last as _long_ as possible, even if they had to screw their team over getting a vacation.

And behind everyone, sitting in the foyer, was Charles. As the door to the garage closed and the voices of the kids drifted away, he sighed in relief. Now it was time for _his_ vacation.

**~X~**

Getting to the beach took a lot longer than anyone expected. Scott had already laid out a carefully constructed schedule in his mind. Ok, actually, he wrote it all down. It really was a good plan. It would take three and half hours to get where they were going. Scott planned to make one necessary pit stop for gas at the second hour. He had planned to stop every forty five minutes to let everyone use the bathroom and get something to drink. He had even planned for one stop where everyone could get out and walk around to stretch their legs a little. With this schedule, they would be able to make it to the beach by at least four thirty.

But then, he didn't take into account many things.

For some reason or the other, Amara had to pee every five minutes. Before they had even made it out of Bayville, Scott had had to pull over twice and let her run into a restaurant to use the bathroom. Then ten minutes after that they had to stop again. After an hour had passed, they had ended up having to stop a total of seven times. At that point, Amara had told him that she was sure that was the last time, and he had felt relieved…that is, until Tabitha said that Amara had said the word 'pee' too many times and now she had to go as well.

After that, he realized that he had spent so much time having to pull off of the highway to find rest stops and then letting the car run while Amara did her business that the gas was already getting too low. So, sighing in frustration, at hour one and a half, he pulled off to the nearest gas station.

As Scott pumped the gas, everyone got out (and stayed under the shelter to keep out of the rain) to stretch their legs. Remy bought everyone a round of Yoo-hoos and a mountain of gummy worms to share. This, Scott came to realize a half hour later, was a bad idea. Whether it was the excitement of the trip, the fact that no one had eaten a proper meal yet that day, or because they were a bunch of kids, Scott couldn't tell you why everyone but him had become so deliriously hyper.

Remy, Rogue, and Amara sat in the very back row of the X-van. Rogue was in the middle while the other two had window seats. Kurt, Kitty, and Tabitha were on the next row in front of them and Jean had the passenger seat next to the driving Scott. He glanced in his rear-view mirror at one point to see everyone giggling insanely and throwing gummy worms at each other. Even Jean was laughing quietly next to him as she sipped on her yoo-hoo.

In the backseat, Remy and everyone else were all thinking about how great fun this mission was already turning out to be.

"Hey, hey," Kurt held up a hand to get everyone's attention. He twisted around his seat to better see their faces. "I have a good joke." He busted out laughing as if the thought of this joke alone was hysterical. "Ok," he cleared his throat and tried not to laugh again. Rogue giggling behind her hand was making it hard for him to keep a straight face. "Here it is…Why didn't the turkey want anything to eat?"

Everyone just kept giggling. He hadn't even said the punch line and already they were laughing.

"Because-" Kurt broke off and started laughing. "Because he-" he stopped again as the giggles over took him. Finally he was able to pull himself together for a few moments to say-"Because he was stuffed!" And then fell back against the seat, howling in laughter.

For some reason or the other, everyone found this hilarious (except for Scott who was just worried) and fell over each other laughing. Amara was slapping her knee, Rogue was bent double and her face was quickly becoming redder and redder, Remy was covering his face with his hands, Kitty was clutching at the stitch she was getting in her side from laughing so much, Jean was spitting out her drink, and Tabitha had clean fallen out of her chair and was on the floor of the van, screaming in laughter.

It was a long time before they calmed down enough to be able to breathe. It was then they noticed one) how much their faces hurt from laughing and two) how much their stomachs disagreed with just eating junk food.

It was then that they all started hounding Scott to pull off of the highway and find a restaurant. Scott just wanted to keep driving because at this point they were _very_ behind on his precious schedule. If he just kept driving without making any more stops…

"We're STARVING!" Tabitha screamed and then threw a gummy worm at the back of his head.

"HEY! HEY!" He screamed shrilly. "No throwing things at the driver! We could all wreck and die!"

"Come _on, _Scott," Tabitha said, "lighten up already!"

"Yeah Scott," Remy grinned from the backseat. "Lighten up and let us throw stuff at you already!"

Fighting not to crack a grin, Scott ignored these comments and instead replied, "Fine, we'll get something to eat. You guys decide where you want to go."

"I-hop!"

"Burger King!"

"Ew, Burger King? Gross."

"Heart attack Wendy's!"

"Dairy Queen!"

"Bowel trouble Taco Bell!"

Scott quietly groaned as many answers flew at him all at once. For a moment he contemplated naming a place they were going, and then to just keep driving and saying, 'We're almost there, we're almost there…' until finally they arrived at the professor's beach house. But this would undoubtedly lead to his own decapitation and Scott didn't very much like that thought. Since no one could agree on a place, he announced that they were just going to pull off at the next exit and go to the closest restaurant. Everyone behind him grunted and grumbled but he ignored them in favor of concentrating on the road.

The farther they drove away from Bayville, the lighter the rain was. Right now they were just driving through a light drizzle and the thick clouds in the sky forbid the sun from breaking through. The hot June heat was still intact and the roads were steaming in some parts from where the rain had met the hot gravel. They kept the air conditioner on the highest it would go and Scott realized with some misery that this was burning the gas twice as quickly than it normally did. Eventually, another trip to the gas station would have to happen. The X-van really wasn't great on gas mileage.

Scott pulled off at the next exit and then turned into the first restaurant he saw. I-hop.

"Yes!" Kurt yelled in triumph. "All you can eat pancakes! Woo!"

"Calm down, Ric Flair," Scott rolled his eyes as he pulled into a parking spot. "Alright everyone," he sighed, "please, _please_ let's try not to bring too much attention to ourselves in here-"

But at that point he was already talking to an empty car. Everyone waved vaguely over their shoulders at him and he was met with a chorus of-"Yeah, Scott,", "Sure, Scott,", "When have we ever done that before?", and a "you're so cute when you're stressed, Scott," from Jean.

Unlike Scott, Remy and Rogue were having a good time. Rogue was so hungry she thought she would lose it if she didn't get something to eat soon. Remy was thinking that if they took as long as they could getting to the beach house, that they probably wouldn't have to do any work tonight. Scott would undoubtedly set them to work as soon as they arrived, but if they got there after dark…

Remy grinned evilly.

"Hi!" A bubbly and cheerful waitress greeted them. "Welcome to the international house of pancakes!"

"Yeah!" Kurt pumped a fist in the air. "Pancakes!"

"Absolutely!" The waitress said in an enthusiastic tone that matched Kurt's. "How many people do we have here?"

"Eight," Rogue responded after she counted quickly.

"Excellent!" She picked up an armful of menus and then led them over to one of the larger tables.

It took a little longer than normal for them to get their drinks ordered, mostly because Kurt kept changing his mind and going-"OO! I want this! No, wait, I want THIS! No, THIS!" before he finally settled on strawberry lemonade. Then Amara stared at the drink section of the menu for a long moment, pursing her lips and clicking her tongue while saying-"Oh, what do I want…What. Do. I. Want? There are so many choices! What to choose..." before she finally ordered water. Then Remy and Rogue both ordered cherry coke and then argued over who was copying whom.

"Remy, I'm not copying you!" Rogue insisted once the waitress had walked off to get their drinks. "Why would I do that? If anything, you're copying me!"

"And why would _I _do that?" Remy argued, looking very offended by her accusation. "I like cherry coke, I always have."

"Bull hockey!" Rogue spat. "You just ordered it because I did!"

"No, you ordered it first because you knew that I was planning on ordering it!"

"OO, look!" Kurt said excitedly from behind his menu. "All you can eat pancakes for six ninety nine! And it comes with a side of bacon!"

"You started this argument, Remy!" Rogue said hotly, "I think you did it because you know I like cherry coke more and you feel threatened by that!"

"Hey! I'm three years older than you. That means that Remy's liked cherry coke longer than you have so now your argument has no foundation." Remy smirked smugly.

Everyone else at the table groaned and they didn't bother to hide it. It didn't matter though; Remy and Rogue were so concentrated on arguing over stupid and unimportant things that they didn't notice anyone else around them. Kurt was too busy drooling over his menu to notice any of this, Tabitha and Amara were covering each other's ears, Kitty was trying to ignore the two arguing, Scott had banged his face to the table and hadn't come back up, and Jean was shaking her head and thinking about how silly their argument was.

They really were just two children in adult's bodies, Jean was sure of that. In fact, she knew that the last time she had heard anyone argue over something so silly and trivial was when she herself had been a child and two kids in her kindergarten class fought over who got to play with the legos next. Back then, that had been a big deal because everyone wanted to play with the legos. And as she drowned out the sound of Remy and Rogue's voices, she idly wished that legos would make a come back because they were a lot of fun to play with…

"Fine, whatever—I'm done with this argument, you buttcrack!" Rogue snapped at Remy and ripped her menu open. "Oh look, they have crepes."

"The banana ones are good," Remy commented as he too opened his menu. "But I think I'll go with the raspberry. Raspberries are good this time of the year."

And just like that the fight was over. Everyone else at the table sighed in relief and went back to looking over their menus.

It was several minutes later after their drinks had been brought to the table and their long order was taken that Remy stood up. He wore a barely concealed grin that spelled trouble but no one but Rogue noticed. He excused himself, saying he was going to the 'little boys room' which he quickly changed to 'big, gruff, manly room' after receiving several pointed looks and then walked off. Rogue watched his retreating form with curiosity. Something about his demeanor wasn't right. She had the funny feeling that he wasn't going to the bathroom at all but before she could see which direction he went in, she realized that Kitty was saying something to her.

"-and toned man buttcheeks." She was saying.

"Uh, what?" Rogue asked as she forced her attention to the girl across the table from her.

Kitty sent her a disapproving look. "I _said_ that we're going to have to get you a boyfriend while at the beach so you can have a guy with-"

"Toned buttcheeks?" Rogue finished dully.

"Yes!" Kitty said brightly. "And bronzed pecs and biceps," Kitty closed her eyes as though she were thinking of something dreamy. "Mmmm…"

"Gross!" Kurt interrupted and he looked extremely sickened as if they had just shown him a picture of something dead. "I don't want to hear about this crap while I'm trying to eat!"

Kitty's eyes snapped open at once and she glared at Kurt. "It's not gross and you're not even eating yet!"

"Well I'm about to eat." Kurt muttered. "And now my stomach is churning, and not in a nice way."

Rogue raised an eyebrow. "Your stomach can churn in a nice way?"

"Of course," Kurt insisted before turning back to Kitty. "But Kitty's disgusting drooling-"

"I'm NOT drooling!"

"-is giving me the unpleasant urge to vomit."

Propping her elbow up on the table, Rogue placed her chin in her hand as she watched the two argue. She had noticed that there had been some friction between them lately, but hadn't asked either about it. They had always had little cute arguments that were dangerously close to flirting, but now they sincerely seemed to be upset with one another. It seemed to be Kurt more than Kitty—he was suddenly taking offense to things like her talking about shirtless men.

Before Rogue could think any more into this subject, Kitty was talking to her again.

"Anyway, what I was saying before pancake man over there interrupted-" she threw a pointed look at Kurt, "I'm going to find you a boyfriend."

A sour look immediately formed on her face at Kitty's words. But Kitty ignored it and kept talking. It was no big deal to her; she had forced Rogue to go out on several dates before. But Rogue had no intention of letting Kitty set her up with anyone again. She hadn't enjoyed the last few dates that she had been on and didn't know why this time would be any different.

There was something different about every one of these guys that she had gone out with, and Rogue had pointed them all out to Kitty afterwards. One of them was rude and just kept talking about himself the entire time. He went on and on about where he was going to college and what TV shows he liked to watch and worst of all—FOOTBALL. Rogue hated football with a passion. She secretly wished that every football stadium would blow up for no reason and every football would inexplicably pop and never be able to be used again. But that guy went on and on and on and on and on and ON about it. Rogue had eventually drowned him out and spent most of the evening counting the noodles of the pasta on her plate. But he hadn't even noticed her inattentiveness and just kept talking and talking and talking.

The next guy paid attention to her. He paid a LOT of attention to her. You could say a little_ too_ much attention to certain parts of her. Her chest, mainly. The whole date was spent with him asking her questions politely…while staring at her breasts as he waited for the answer. Then when she had enough and just crossed her arms over them, he took to staring at the waitress's behind as she passed the table. Honestly Rogue didn't see what the big deal was. Her breasts weren't _that_ big.

They were exactly what the rest of her was like—one hundred percent average. She wasn't tall and she wasn't short. She was of average height. She wasn't fat and she wasn't a bean pole. She didn't possess the ultra curvy shape of Jean or the skinny and toned one of Kitty. Her body was normal with the average soft curves here and there. She had normal brown hair and normal green eyes. The only thing she really did like about herself was her hair. The lone white streak was enough to give her _some_ bit of personality that no one else had, and when the sun hit it just right it shone red. It made her a touch less average. But she still couldn't change what she was and that was completely and utterly normal.

Except that she was a mutant who could kill anyone with a single touch.

But getting back to the subject...

Her third and last date was with a seemingly nice guy. He had blonde hair and grey eyes and he had braces, but Rogue thought they were kind of cute. At least he made them look cute. He was actually a really nice person and he was polite and didn't once look at her in an inappropriate way. He was funny and told a few good jokes that had her laughing. But there was just one thing that wasn't right. They didn't _click_. Or it might have been the horrible kiss afterwards.

For some reason after every one of these dates Rogue had allowed them to kiss her. In hindsight, this had been ridiculously stupid on her part (except for the braces guy since she did like him) and at the time she must have been half out of her mind. The only one she _didn't _allow to kiss her had been pervert boy because she shuddered to think of him even touching her. But that hadn't stopped him. He had pretty much cornered her against the car, breathing into her face and sending the smell of onion up into her nostrils. Nearly choking on that smell, she had barely had time to say _no _when he was already on her, shoving his tongue into her mouth and over her teeth and trying to gain entrance. She had determinedly kept her teeth closed to try to keep him out, but then he had thought it was totally appropriate to reach around and grab her ass. This had made her gasp and he had taken the opportunity to push his tongue in…only for Rogue to bite him.

After he had finally broken free, he called her a crazy butter toast—or maybe something more inappropriate—and so Rogue had punched him in the gut and walked into the house.

He had never spoken to her again.

…Not that she was complaining.

She had allowed football boy to kiss her because it had been her first date and her first kiss and she had been so nervous over the whole thing that she had just wanted to get it over and done with. So she had allowed him to kiss her. It was pleasant enough, if a little dry and there was no passion in it whatsoever. It might have made for a good first kiss if he hadn't pulled back afterward, smiled at her and said, "Touchdown."

That was enough to make her shrink away and run into the house.

And braces boy…He slobbered all over her. He was still nice and gentle but it was _wet_ and it didn't taste all that great. It felt like he had just dumped the lower half of her face in warm water and then held her there. She had pulled back and fought not to wipe her mouth off with the back of her hand.

He was nice but he sucked at kissing so she quickly said goodnight and ran into the house.

And after all of that happened, Rogue was not interested in dating, or kissing, for that matter. If it was always going to be like _that_, then she wanted no part of that world. If it was always like that, then she really couldn't fathom why anyone liked it. Surely not everyone's experiences were like hers. However, everytime she had told herself that, and everytime she had less and less fun. She supposed that she might try it one or two more times, but mostly just to get free food. That was the only upside to those dates.

These thoughts were wiped away the moment the waitress arrived, carrying a big tray of food. Remy returned at the same time and slipped back into his empty seat next to her with a wink. She wondered what he was winking at her like that for, but she didn't ask, especially not while there were other people around. She knew enough about Remy to know that when he winked that most of the time it was a sign of trouble. He had done something.

Remy…Remy was her best friend. She was glad that he had joined the X-men because if he hadn't she would have been really bored. Well, maybe not. She did have Jean and Kitty and everyone else to hang around with. But there was something different about her relationship with Remy. Their dynamic was different and unlike she and braces boy, they _clicked_; in a friend way of course. She didn't think of Remy in a date way. Maybe she did at first when he had first joined the X-men and she had had a series of strange and erotic dreams about him. But that had just been a crush, and one that had been gotten over a long time ago. She could still appreciate his good looks, but she didn't think of him in a romantic way. No matter how thick his hair was, and no matter how elegantly it fell around his face…and it didn't matter that his bottom lip was slightly plumper than his top one and it looked very kissable. She didn't think words like _kissable_ when she was around Remy…she didn't feel the need to make him laugh just so she could see the dimple that formed on his left cheek and she certainly didn't have the urge to poke it with her finger…

From the moment he had joined the X-men, there had been this weird chemistry between them that made it so easy for them to talk to one another and eventually for them to become friends. She didn't have to explain things to Remy the way she did anyone else, he just _got her_ and she _got him_. Sometimes they would be thinking the same thing and then say it out loud and that was always creepy. They thought along the same lines a lot of the time…unless they were fighting. When they were fighting she couldn't stand him, couldn't stand the sound of his voice, and for a few moments couldn't understand how they had ever managed to become friends. But then it was over and they got along again and then she couldn't understand how she could have thought such mean things about her bestest friend Remy.

They laughed about the same things, they took interest in the same things, his company was pleasant and always welcome. When she was sad he always had this strange way of making her laugh. When she was mad at him he was always able to make her want to claw his eyes out. But they always were friends and she was glad that she didn't have to live without him.

Right now he sat next to her, munching on his raspberry crepes and smiling at her. She gave him a suspicious sideways glance. He was up to something, and Rogue had the funny feeling that he hadn't gone to the bathroom at all. What had Remy done?

**To Be Continued...**


	4. Kurt's Diabolical Pancakes

**Remy's Diabolical Plan**

**Chapter Four: Kurt's Diabolical Pancakes**

**~X~**

What had Remy done?

For the moment, she decided to put it in the back of her mind and eat her cheesy and fluffy omelet with tomatoes and mushrooms on top. Across from her, Kitty had ordered the vegetarian breakfast and Kurt had ordered the all you can eat pancakes and ended up eating twenty three of them. He had wanted to order more—but by that point they had all finished their food and were waiting for him to finish. Not only that, but people were starting to stare as plate after plate of pancakes kept coming to the table.

Eventually they talked him down and he half heartedly said he was done. Having already paid for their food, everyone stood up in relief and got ready to go. Rogue thought it was odd that Remy suddenly vanished from next to her so she looked up, only to see him at the end of the table standing next to Scott.

Scott didn't really notice him because he was too busy pulling out money and counting out a tip. Jean didn't notice either because she was talking to Kitty. Only Rogue saw him there and with a slight sense of dread, she saw Remy look at her and wink.

"Ok, that should be enough," Scott said as he placed the money on the table and turned to leave.

It happened fast, but not fast enough not to be totally unsuspicious. As soon as Scott turned, Remy's hand whipped out onto the table and swiped at a few glasses sitting there.

"Whoops!" Remy said before he hand even hit the glasses, "My hand slipped!"

He said this before his hand 'slipped' but it did eventually 'slip' and hit all of the glasses, sending them to the floor right into Scott's feet. Naturally, Scott tripped and fell forward—Rogue could have _sworn_ she saw Remy move a fraction out of his way so that he couldn't grab him to right himself—and then he was on the floor.

"Ow." he said simply.

People at the surrounding tables turned to stare and with a gasp, Jean rushed forward and got on her knees, despite the floor being covered in fluid.

"Honey, are you ok?" Jean shrieked and rolled Scott over, drenching his back in the coke that had been spilled there.

"I'm," he said breathlessly. "Give me a sec…"

Rogue glared at Remy. What the hell did he think he was doing? He could have seriously hurt Scott! Obviously he must have a bigger plan, but what on earth this plan could entail that involved nearly killing one of their friends, Rogue didn't want to know. If this was what he was going to do, then he had to be stopped!

She opened her mouth to point out that Remy did it on purpose but no one noticed her. They had all rushed to Scott's side and were looming over him in concern. Remy was in the midst of it and sounding sincerely sorry.

"I am SO sorry mon ami!" he was saying to Scott. "Remy's hand just slipped. I don't know what it was thinkin'…"

Rogue continued to glare but came over to see if Scott was ok. Jean had helped him sit up and he was reassuring everyone that he was fine. A few waitresses had rushed over and were worriedly looking on also.

"I'm ok, really," Scott kept insisting. "I mean, I'm soaking wet now and I think I twisted my ankle, but I'll live."

It was after Jean and Kurt had helped him up, sat him in a chair, the waitresses fussed over him and then brought him some aspirin, a janitor came and cleaned up the mess, Jean checked out his ankle, Remy tried to look innocent, and Kurt had discreetly ordered three more pancakes and ate them that they were once again ready to leave. This time Jean and Kitty got on either side of Scott and looped his arms around their shoulders to help him walk and Remy didn't try to murder anyone. Rogue had continuously glared at him the whole time and now that they were walking out, she pinched him in the arm.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" She hissed so that Amara and Tabitha, who were behind, them couldn't hear. "You did that on purpose!"

"Hey, that hurt," he nodded to his arm where she had pinched him.

Scowling, she reached up and pinched him harder.

"Ouch! Stop it!" he hissed back.

"No!" she whispered vehemently as they walked out of the doors and out into the rainy summer afternoon. "You deserve it after trying to kill Scott! Why would you do that?"

"You'll see, calm your little head down," he patted her on the head affectionately. "Remy always got a plan."

She knew that but at the moment, Remy's 'plan' seemed to involve murdering her friends and she wasn't about to go along with it. She glanced sideways at him to find him grinning and rolled her eyes. She might not like it, but she was curious as to what he was up to.

"I don't think I can drive," Scott announced as they all walked through the parking lot and towards the X-van. "Who wants to?"

"I do!" Remy piped up a little too quickly not to arouse suspicion. Rogue shot him a look but he just grinned at her, displaying his dimple in the process.

"Ok, I'll just give you directions." Scott pulled his arm from around Kitty's shoulders to reach into his pocket and got the keys. He tossed them to Remy before leaning on Kitty again.

"Yes, I will drive," Remy nodded. They all stopped next to van as they came to it and Remy started to unlock the doors before he suddenly gasped.

For a moment, Rogue just looked around, wondering what he was looking at. She couldn't see anything out of the ordinary from where she was standing and the only thing that made her want to gasp at the moment was the rain that was trickling unpleasantly down the back of her neck.

"Oh, would ya look at that?" Remy said as he shook his head in dismay. "The air is all gone from that tire!"

Rogue raised an eyebrow and looked at the tire to see that, yes, it was out of air. Almost as if someone deliberately let it all out…She jerked her head back over to Remy and narrowed her eyes. His tone of voice alone was completely unconvincing. He didn't sound surprised or upset. He said 'The air is all gone from that tire' like someone would say, 'I'm having a great day!' or 'Oh look! It's a sale!' It didn't say 'Crap, now we're going to be late to the beach house because we have to put air back in this tire'.

But no one else seemed to notice this at all. Scott groaned, Jean groaned, Kurt groaned and patted his stomach, and Amara, Kitty, and Tabitha groaned because their hair was getting wet. Rogue just glared.

"Actually," Scott said suddenly, "I think there's an air pump in the back somewhere."

"WHOOPS!" Remy said loudly and at the same time his hand flew into the air and the keys went flying. They fell through some bars on the ground to land in the gutter. "Oh would ya look at that? Remy done dropped the keys in the gutter."

Scott looked totally unconcerned by this. "Ok then…Jean, can you get the keys?"

With one hand pressed to her temple, Jean easily levitated the keys from the gutter and into Remy's hand. Rogue took the opportunity when no one was looking to deliver a sharp jab with her elbow into Remy's ribs.

"Ah!" He said over dramatically and stumbled away from Rogue, only to drop the keys into the gutter again. "Rogue!" He said in a disapproving tone. "Jeany just got those keys for me! Now you've gone an made me drop em' again!"

Rogue continued to glare. She had hit him hard, but she hadn't him that hard. Never before had he screamed and stumbled away from her when she had hit him. But just as she opened her mouth to argue, Jean spoke up.

"It's no problem, I've got them," she said reassuringly as she once again levitated the keys up into Remy's hand.

"Hurry up!" Kitty whined and she tried to shield her head with her arms from the rain. "We're getting soaked!"

It was only a light drizzle of rain but this was true since they had been standing there for several minutes.

"Oh wow, that's true," Remy said as he unlocked the doors, "I guess we're probably gonna have to stop somewhere and change…"

Rogue didn't miss the grin that light up his face. She climbed into the passenger seat as he went around to the back of the car and searched for the air pump. It took a ridiculous amount of time for him to find said pump, set it up, and then put air into the tire. They sat there for the better part of an hour, waiting impatiently as Remy took his sweet time pumping air into the tire. The weather was too hot for them not to turn the air on, which involved turning the car on and burning more gas. Finally Remy finished and grinning happily, climbed into the driver's seat.

Rogue sat in the passenger seat and continued to narrow her eyes in his direction. Obviously he was trying to slow them down. But why? How was slowing them down going to make the beach trip last longer? Perhaps he was just trying to get the team as depressed as he could get them so that they wouldn't feel like they could start the mission right away. This might work. But knowing Scott, he would probably make them work twice as hard to get rid of their depression, so ultimately that plan wouldn't work. She would just have to ask him the next moment they got alone.

"You're right, Remy," Scott was saying from the backseat. He now sat between Jean and Kitty in the back. "We're going to have to stop somewhere and change out of these wet clothes. Get back on the highway and pull off at the first rest stop you see."

"Ai ai, captain," Remy gave a little salute before starting the car and pulling out of the parking spot.

He drove a normal speed. Not too fast, and not too slow. He was a decent driver, always using his signal, always looking before he changed lanes, and making sure that everyone had on their seatbelts. Rogue watched him, searching for some sign of whatever it was he was doing, but couldn't find any. He was thankfully being normal at the current moment.

The next rest stop turned out to be at the next turn off, so Remy pulled off of the highway and into the little parking lot. Everyone, having already searched through their bags for the clothes, jumped out and ran into the bathrooms (Scott being teleported by Kurt), and left Remy and Rogue in the car alone. Of course, this might have been because Rogue had grabbed hold of his elbow and wouldn't let him out of the car.

"What the hell are you doing?" She asked once everyone was out of earshot. "Why are you tryin to make us late?"

"I was bored," Remy shrugged, "and Remy was thinking that if we're late gettin there, then we ain't gotta do no work tonight."

She gasped. "You tried to kill Scott so that you could have a night off? Remy!"

"What?"

"That was mean."

"Ok…Are we done here? My shirt is stickin into my bellybutton."

"Remy!"

"Rogue? Since when did you become so good, hm? I thought you were just as lazy as I was."

"I am NOT lazy," she argued though she knew it was true. She was lazy about some things. Things like packing. "Ok, fine, I'm lazy. But at least I ain't a murderer!"

"Remy ain't either," he responded lightly, "I didn't kill nobody."

"You attempted to!"

"There, there, little one," he patted her on the head again. "Don't get so worked up about it. I promise I won't try to kill anyone again."

She stared at him for a moment, pouting slightly before she sighed. "Fine. But if you do-"

He held his hands up in defeat. "Remy'll prepare hiself for the lynchin."

"I _will_ lynch you." She told him seriously.

The corner of his mouth quirked just slightly. "I think that takes at least two people."

"I'll make it work."

"I'd like to see that."

"I don't think you would."

"Let's be friends again?" He said hopefully and held a fist out to her.

Rolling her eyes, she bumped her fist with his gently. "Don't forget," she reminded him, "do it again, and it's a lynchin for you."

"Yes ma'am!"

"Shut-up."

"Ok."

**~X~**

When Remy had first told her that he was trying to take as much time as possible getting to the beach house, Rogue never imagined that he would do everything humanly possible to slow them down. She never thought that he could think up so many seemingly innocent ways to hinder their progress. But he managed. Every little thing suddenly needed to be stopped for.

For example, Remy, out of no where, grew a strange fondness for trucker's gas stations and insisted that they stop at every single one they came across. They really did have to get more gas, but they didn't need to go into the gas station and look at all the 'cool stuff' as Remy put it.

And Rogue had to admit that trucker's gas stations were fun to stop at. If it weren't for the leering truckers she would have liked it better but some things just couldn't be helped. The buildings were big and when you went inside there was shelves upon shelves of snacks, disposable cameras, and boat loads of souvenirs. Though why anyone would want a souvenir from the miniscule town of Pumpkin Head, New York, Rogue didn't know. She was positive that Pumpkin Head was so tiny that it wasn't even on any maps. However, this did not stop Kurt from buying a t-shirt that said 'I made a baby in Pumpkin Head' for Scott, who was stuck in the car.

Scott was less than enthusiastic about this gift.

The next trucker's gas station that they stopped at was called 'The Flying Jay' and Remy jumped out of the car, telling Scott to calm down, they would make it to the beach, and he only had to go in and grab one thing. Of course, everyone else went in with him, leaving Jean and Scott.

That station wasn't as big, but inside they sold cotton candy and everyone got a stick and were very happy.

The next trucker's gas station they stopped at was less nice. Scott moaned from the backseat, sounding defeated as he asked Remy why they were there. Remy said that he had to pee. And everyone went inside with him.

It turned out that they didn't like this one as much as the others. Kitty and Rogue went into the bathroom, found that it smelled very strange, and then got scared when a skinny middle aged woman came out of one of the stalls and offered to sell them some pot. They didn't even answer her, just turned and walked out to find Kurt coming out of the men's room at the same time and saying, "Some guy in there just tried to sell me some pot!"

They realized at that point that everyone in this establishment were all very sketchy looking characters and were watching their every move. So feeling very creeped out, they rushed out of there and out into the parking lot. When they got the van, a very hairy trucker at the next gas pump looked Kitty up and down and then asked if she wanted to come toot his whistle.

The double meaning was too much for Rogue, who burst into laughter and fell into the car. Kitty looked disgusted and then scrambled into the backseat, and everyone else gaped at the man. Kurt looked about ready to throw something at him, but Jean pulled him into the van and Remy took off, promising them they he wouldn't stop at any more gas stations unless they needed to.

Of course this didn't mean that they wouldn't stop anywhere else.

They were driving along through the slowly thickening rain when Remy gasped and pointed somewhere off to the side.

"Did you see that deer?" he asked excitedly. "I ain't ever seen a deer before! Oh what a COINCIDENCE! There's a turn off!"

"NO!" Scott was wailing but Remy had already turned and pulled over.

"I saw it over there," Remy completely stopped the car and started looking out the window and towards the woods at the side.

Everyone looked that way, even Rogue though she wasn't sure why. She knew there was nothing there; Remy was just making it up.

"I don't see a deer," Tabitha said as she squinted to see through the rain.

"Its right there," Remy pointed to a random place and everyone tried harder to see what he was seeing. "Oh, look, a rabbit!" He said then, looking through the windshield and pointing wildly. Now everyone turned that way and struggled to find the imaginary rabbit.

"How did you see a rabbit from this far off?" Jean asked.

"I don't know," Remy shrugged. "I guess I have good eyesight-"

"Hey, a deer!" Kitty squealed.

"What!" Remy started jerking his head around. "Where?"

Rogue (along with everyone else) turned to see that there was _actually _a deer standing there at the edge of the woods and staring straight at them. Rogue had never seen one in real life and now she was struck with how beautiful a creature it really was. It was just a young doe, small and delicate with a sprinkle of white down its sides and a long snout. It stared at them for a long moment and they stared back in silence, all drinking in the sight with curiosity. Then it seemed to deem them uninteresting because it turned and took off, more bouncing that running in big, graceful leaps across the forest floor.

They were all silent for a moment, watching until it disappeared from sight.

"That was so COOL!" Amara grinned. "Thanks for pulling over, Remy!"

"Uh…Yeah, you're welcome." Remy nodded and started up the car as everyone else echoed their thanks.

Rogue just rolled her eyes again. Remy had gotten _very_ lucky because she knew he hadn't seen a deer at all in the first place. She was sure that that was the end, that Remy couldn't possibly think up any more reasons to stop the car. They drove for half an hour, everyone silent and looking out at the cloudy skies. It was nearing six o'clock now but the only way that they could tell that it was getting dark was because the sky was darkening from gray to darker gray.

"Does anyone hear that clickin sound?" Remy asked and Rogue immediately punched him in the arm.

"Hey!" he sounded offended but his lip quirked into the slightest smirk.

"Remy," Rogue said pleasantly but there was a tone of warning to her voice. "If we pull over again, my lips my just loosen."

"Loose lips sink ships," he said matter-of-factly.

"I know," she nodded and ignored everyone staring at them. "That would be the whole idea."

"Right." he grinned. "Gotcha."

And they didn't stop again after that.

**To Be Continued...**


	5. In Which There Is Nothing Diabolical

**Remy's Diabolical Plan**

**Chapter Five: In Which There Is Nothing Diabolical**

**~X~**

It was fully dark by the time they finally arrived at the beach. They followed Professor X's directions but still got lost. It turned out that he not only owned a beach house, he owned a _private_ beach house on a _private_ beach. After parking the car they all stood in front of it, staring up at the house. They couldn't see much since it was dark, but the flood light automatically came on when it detected them near and they were able to make out a few things about it.

It wasn't extravagant and fancy, but it was of good size and it looked nice. They were able to see that it was blue with white shutters and a big wrap around porch that held several white colored rocking chairs and one swing. There was obviously more than one story because it was tall and loomed over them in the darkness. The stairs leading up to the porch were also white and they made their way up them (Scott limping the whole way) and up onto the porch.

But what all of them wanted to see the most, they couldn't make out in the dark. The house faced the ocean and it was just a few yards off from where they stood, continuously rolling up onto the beach and creating the most calming sound. The air smelled like salt and sand and it somehow felt different from the air back at home. It was cleaner, warmer, wetter, and so refreshing that Rogue couldn't help but to keep gulping in deep breaths of it into her lungs.

Remy picked out the right key and slid it into the lock. It opened without any trouble and after everyone took off their shoes, they all stumbled into the dark living room. Kitty held her cell phone out in front of her like a flashlight until she found a light switch and flipped it on.

The girls oohed and awed over the pretty colors and the wooden blinds and the wooden beams on the ceiling and the pretty blue paint. The guys only noticed one thing. A big flat screen TV hanging on the wall that had a note on the front of it that said 'DON'T BREAK IT'.

At some point Professor X must have sent someone here to clean the place up and prepare it for them (and write the note) but they all put it to the backs of their minds to ask him about later. They helped Scott over to sit on the couch and Kurt sat down next to him, remote already in hand. They were content to sit down and watch TV but all of the girls (and Remy apparently) wanted to see the rest of the house.

There wasn't a wall to separate the next room, and even though it was still dark, they already knew before they headed over there that it was the kitchen. A big kitchen (which Jean excitedly pointed out). This time the girls oohed and awed over tiles on the wall and on the counter tops, the island in the middle of the kitchen, and all the shiny chrome.

Kitty found the light switch and a few lights in the ceiling slowly brightened.

"OOOOOOO," they all said at the same time as they were able to better take in their surroundings.

The next room was a long hall that had three different doors, a pair of closet doors, and a set of stairs. They went through the first door under the stairs to find the dining room, another door was a small bathroom, and behind the closet doors at the end of the hall sat a washer and dryer. The last door led outside which they ignored in favor of racing each other up the stairs, nearly killing themselves because someone shouted, "Last one up is a rotten egg!" And since no one desired to be a rotten egg, they all wrestled upwards, which turned out to be quite stupid because there were no lights on upstairs yet and they didn't know where they were going. So they blindly struggled up the stairs. They ended up smacking headlong into the wall, because the stairs had turned and no one had been able to tell. But yet they _still_ didn't stop, everyone just kept surging forward, some laughing, some screaming, and Jean was nearly wetting herself she was laughing so hard at them as she stood at the bottom of the stairs and listened.

Finally after they had become a tangle of limbs on the stairs, Kurt held up his arms and said loudly. "Ok, STOP! Everyone stop MOVING!"

Everyone instantly stilled.

"Wait…" Remy said from the bottom of the heap, "Kurt? Where did _you_ come from? Ow!"

Rogue, who was sitting on Remy's back stopped pinching him.

"Who's on top of me?" Remy asked and Rogue pinched him again.

"Rogue!" he said suddenly, "I know that's you!"

Rogue laughed quietly.

Kurt was carefully trying to pick his way around the bodies in the dark and up the remaining steps, feeling his way along the wall with one hand and gripping the stair rail with the other hand. He didn't bother to say anything about his sudden and unexplained appearance to anyone, but instead felt his way up to the landing. It took several minutes to find the light switch once he was there, but eventually he found it and flipped it on. He busted out laughing when his gaze took in the group on the stairs, all tangled up and on top of each other. Remy was at the bottom and starting to turn red.

But once Kurt had the light on, they all fled up the stairs again, leaving Remy to help himself.

"Ha!" Tabitha shouted in triumphant. "Remy's a rotten egg!"

Grumbling, Remy followed after them, followed by a still laughing Jean whom everyone had apparently forgotten about and so she wasn't named the rotten egg.

When they made it to the landing, they were met with the sight of more blue walls stretching down a long hallway lined with white doors. Instantly they all started running into a bedroom, screaming, 'this one's mine' and then running over to see what the other rooms looked like.

There were four bedrooms. In one of them the curtains and bed coverings were a pale yellow color. Amara and Tabitha walked into this one before they even flipped on the light, claimed it was theirs, and then turned on the light and said they both hated yellow. Another room was red and tan, and Jean, swearing up and down that they would sleep in separate beds, claimed it for her and Scott. The third room was just blue and white again and after walking into it, Kurt fell to his knees and screamed 'For the love of God stop with the blue' but then he went over and started jumping on the bed and so they figured he was claiming that room. Remy shrugged and then walked in after him, peering out through the blinds and into the back yard…or to be more precise, he looked into the big black space where he supposed the backyard was.

The last room at the end of the hall (and across from Kurt and Remy's room) turned out to be Rogue and Kitty's since they hadn't called any of the other rooms. Rogue was surprised to find that she actually liked it. The color in here was purple, making them say, "OOOO pretty!" at the exact same time.

Kitty chose a bed randomly and flopped down onto it to lie amongst the pile of pillows there.

"This is nice," she commented as her eyes slid shut.

Rogue agreed and sat down on the edge of her bed to find that it was very comfortable. It was a lot more comfortable than her bed at home. After sleeping on this all summer she didn't know how she was going to go back her lumpy mattress.

"Hey," Kitty muttered from her bed, eyes still closed. "Turn off that light…"

Yawning, Rogue stood up and turned out the light. She walked back over to her bed and curled up on the soft surface of the mattress. She wasn't going to sleep, she wasn't even that tired. And that's exactly what she kept telling herself as she slowly drifted off to sleep to the soft sounds of the ocean.

**~X~**

Something wasn't right.

That was the first thought that registered in Rogue's mind when she woke up. Something was off. This bed felt different and her clothes felt different and something about the room she was in was different from her room. Slowly opening her eyes, she immediately saw why everything felt this way. The memories of the day before came back to the forefront of her mind to tell her where she was.

They were in Professor X's beach house. Lying curled up on her side, Rogue took in a few things. The first thing being how bright the sunshine was and how hard it seemed to be fighting to get through the lilac curtains. The second thing she noticed was Kitty on the bed opposite hers, under the covers and lying on her stomach, still fast asleep. The third thing she took in was that she had fallen asleep by accident the night before, and therefore hadn't changed into any pajamas and was still wearing her clothes from the day before.

This proved to be a bad idea. Rogue felt as far from comfortable as she ever had and less than clean. She was in desperate need of a shower, she realized. It was warm and sweat had stained her clothes in the night, her eyes felt crusted with sleep, her ears needed a cleaning, and her hair closely resembled a rat's nest. So yawning and stretching quietly, Rogue stood and tiptoed out the door, closing it behind her with a soft click.

The house was very quiet, signaling that everyone was still asleep. Rogue took in her surroundings with sleepy eyes, realizing that the blue on the walls and hard wood floors looked different when the sun hit them than it had last night. The whole house looked different, she discovered, especially the kitchen. The colors were brighter and more prominent, and the tiles on the walls and the white wood of the cabinets glinted nicely in the sunshine.

And that's when she saw it. The ocean. It was there right in front of the house and looking beautiful without even meaning to. Rogue made her way onto the beach, enjoying the feel of her bare feet wiggling under the sand. The waves rolled up onto the beach in a continuous never-ending dance, the big expanse of blue stretched out big and wide in front of her, going on and on as far as she could see. A flock of seagulls flew overhead, all letting out the same screeching sounds at once. The air smelled and felt just as good as it had the night before, if not better. Aside from the seagulls and the ocean, it was very quiet here, being a private beach and all. It all felt foreign and strange to Rogue, who had lived near the city for so long. Out here there were no sounds of traffic far off, no car horns or revving engines, and with her team-mates still asleep, no yelling people.

Unfortunately, no matter how good the air smelled and no matter how beautiful the endless stretch of blue in front of her was, Rogue wasn't able to completely forget that she looked and smelled like she'd slept in a dumpster. And since she had no immediate desire to have anyone think she was a hobo, Rogue sighed and then made her way back up the beach and around to the side of the house where the car was parked on the cement driveway so that she could find her suitcase.

The hot water and soapy suds felt good on her grimy skin and head and so twenty minutes later, Rogue stepped out of the shower feeling a thousand times cleaner, refreshed and happy. She happily and meticulously brushed her teeth while wrapped in a fluffy white towel and standing in front of the mirror, enjoying the taste of minty toothpaste early in the morning.

Over the little noises she was making she could clearly hear the sound of someone in the kitchen. It sounded suspiciously like Kurt, who seemed to be opening the cabinets and the refrigerator and then groaning loudly.

Ten minutes later she was dressed and hair dried and she went out to find Kurt sitting on the couch and grumpily watching the TV. Sighing, Rogue dropped her suitcase next to the stairs and then went over to plop down next to him.

"What's with the cranky face?" she asked without taking her eyes off of the big screen in front of her. Nothing was on at the moment, just a commercial that Kurt was watching intently. This was probably because it was a syrup commercial, and the camera was zooming up on a stack of ten pancakes while an unseen someone slowly poured the syrup onto it.

"Hungry," he grunted and when she glanced over at him, Rogue could have sworn she saw a little bit of drool.

"There's nothin in the kitchen?" she asked, though she already knew the answer.

"There's water," he said, "and lots of pots and pans."

"Oh good, we'll have some boiled water for breakfast then."

"I guess so," he said sadly. "I'm so hungry."

"You're always hungry," she pointed out just as a commercial for flea medication came on.

"So," Kurt said defensively. "I'm a growing boy. I mean: man."

"If you're a man you're already grown." She told him with a grin. "If you're still growin' then you must be a boy."

"Shut-up."

"You shut-up!"

"No, you shut-up!"

"No! You!"

"You!"

"No!"

"Yes!"

"No!"

"Wait, what are we arguing about?" Kurt scratched his head in confusion.

"I've got no idea." Rogue shrugged. "Um…I think you were sayin that you're a butthead."

"Nice."

"I know."

It was at that moment that Remy walked in through the front door. In one hand he held the car keys, and the other two large, white paper bags stuffed full of-

"Got some biscuits!" He called cheerfully.

Rogue and Kurt just turned their heads to scrutinize him. Rogue was too lazy to get up and just go get a biscuit. Kurt on the other hand, sniffed at the air like a person would when they smelled something foul and said accusingly, "You went out and you didn't get me any _pancakes_?"

Remy shot him a curiously worried look as he came over to sit on one of the armchairs. "What's with you and the sudden fascination with pancakes?"

"I've always liked pancakes," Kurt argued and despite his preference for pancakes, leaned over and snatched one of the bags that Remy had set on the table. After handing one paper wrapped biscuit to Rogue, he pulled one out for Remy and then one for himself.

"I got orange juice, too." Remy said happily and pulled out two little cartons from the other bag for Rogue and Kurt.

"Mm," Rogue breathed in the scent of her food as she unwrapped it. "You got chicken biscuits!"

Kurt muttered something about pancakes.

"Hey," Rogue said slowly before she took her first bite. "Didn't the professor say somethin about not eating anywhere other than the kitchen or the dining room?"

Both guys stopped and seemed to contemplate this before Remy shrugged.

"I think its fine…Just as long as no one tells Scott."

This was true.

So they resumed eating, silently watching the commercials go by on the TV. And then the program came back on. The program that turned out to be Barney. The big purple dinosaur.

Rogue nearly choked on her food. After taking a huge swig of orange juice, she turned horrified, yet amused eyes on Kurt.

"You were watchin Barney?" She gasped. "Oh my God!" She grinned and turned to Remy while pointing at Kurt. "Remy, Kurt was watchin Barney!"

Remy just quirked an eyebrow.

"No I'm not!" Kurt shouted defensively. "I just turned on the TV when you came in! I didn't know that was on! Don't look at me like that; I wasn't watching Barney!"

It was too late now, Remy and Rogue were both convinced that Kurt had indeed, been watching Barney.

"Biscuit eating butt trumpets," Kurt grumbled as he snatched up the remote and turned the channel.

Rogue giggled, Remy cleared his throat, and Kurt continued to grumble while flipping through the channels. They were thinking their separate things (Rogue was thinking about how good her biscuit was, Remy was thinking that today should be the day for diabolical plans to start, and Kurt was hoping that no one would see through his façade and find out that he really _had_ been watching Barney) but they all froze at the same time when they heard Scott and Jean's voices at the top of the stairs.

One moment they were all sitting down and after sharing an unspoken agreement with just their wide eyes, they all shot to their feet at the same time, scrambling to get all of the food and drinks together and bring it as quickly as they could over to the kitchen. Kurt tripped three times, Rogue tried to keep her hysterical laughter to a minimum (but failed every time Kurt tripped), and Remy was the only calm one, picking up his food and one of the bags and quietly walking over to the kitchen and setting them down on the tiled island.

By the time Jean and Scott emerged from the stairs, looking at them suspiciously, Rogue, Kurt, and Remy were the picture of innocence, all sitting normally around the island on white stools and chewing on their biscuits.

"What did you do?" Jean looked around at them with a raised eyebrow.

"Whatcha mean, Jeany?" Rogue asked with a pair of big eyes.

"Why was everyone running around in here and laughing?" she asked.

"Oh," Rogue waved a hand at her. "That was nothin. Want a biscuit? And some orange juice? Your hair looks great today, by the way. What kind of conditioner do you use? Hey Scott, how's the ankle? Did you guys sleep well in the same bedroom?"

Jean turned red. "We didn't do anything!"

"What are you talkin about?" Rogue asked as though she really had no idea.

"Um…" Jean turned a touch redder. "Nothing, nothing! Did you say something about biscuits?"

"And orange juice!" Remy offered brightly.

"Right," Jean said quickly and sat in another stool. Scott, limping slightly, found the stool next to her and they resumed eating in silence.

Smirking lightly, Remy glanced over at Rogue who shared a wink with him. This was one of the things he loved about her. The fact that she could utterly confuse someone until they forgot about what they were thinking about in the first place. That was actually a trait that she had picked up from him, (being the victim many times) but he still loved when she did it.

"Alright team," Scott said seriously ten minutes later when they had finished eating and still sat around the island on the stools. "Wait…where is the rest of the team?"

No one answered.

"Ok," Scott continued with a little shake of his head. "There are several things we need to do before we get started on the mission. Remy, Rogue, I want you two to find the nearest supermarket and stock up on everything we need." He reached into his pocket. "Here is the Professor's card."

Both of their eyes brightened and unconsciously they leaned forward. Looking a little worried, Scott looked back and forth between them, silently trying to figure out which one looked more trustworthy.

"Rogue, you hang on to it!" He decided and he passed the card to Rogue. "While you two do that, Kurt, I want you and Jean to get a lay of the land. Figure out if we need to get another car. I'll stay here and call the Professor to let him know we got here all right. Then I'll call this guy and set up a meeting with him."

"What's his name again?" Kurt asked, not able to remember ever hearing it.

Scott's brow creased. "Um…I'll figure it out."

"Right, well, we better get going," Remy stood up with Rogue and both of them looked eager.

"DON'T over spend!" Scott called after them as they ran out the door.

**To Be Continued...**


	6. Of Diabolical Strawberries

**Remy's Diabolical Plan**

**Chapter Six: Of Diabolical Strawberries and Other Things**

**~X~**

"Listen, Cajun, if you ever tell anyone about this, you're dead." Rogue warned.

"I ain't gonna tell nobody, chére, Remy like this song too—oh wait, here's the best part."

And with a near identical pair of goofy grins on their faces, they broke into song at the same time.

Baby Got Back was on the radio. The people in the next car stared over at them but Remy, who was thumping the steering wheel to the beat, ignored them. Rogue was torn between laughing at the spectacle they made at this particular red light, hiding under the seat in embarrassment, and just ignoring them like Remy and enjoying herself.

"My homeboys tried to warn me but that butt you got make me so—Oh, wait the light's green!" Remy said suddenly when someone honked a horn at him. "Sorry," he said sheepishly as he waved at them in the rearview mirror.

"Remy," Rogue leaned forward and turned down the radio. "Do you know where you're goin? I don't remember seeing any grocery stores on the way here."

"I saw a few," he reassured her as he turned. "Don't worry, if we can't find any I'll just stop and ask."

"Right…" Rogue watched the people on the sidewalk as they drove by. "Have you noticed that everyone here-"

"Have no clothes other than bathin' suits? Yes, I have."

"That's not what I was going to say, but now that you mention it…" she said as she noticed that he was right. Most of the people walking by were wearing bathing suits. And honestly, Rogue could have gone without seeing quite a few of them. That guy was so hairy he looked like there was a carpet on his chest. That guy had some very unsightly tan lines and that there seemed to be some kind of fungus growing out of woman's bellybutton. Rogue diverted her gaze back to the dashboard. No more looking out the window today.

"Hey look!" Remy said cheerfully, "there's a butt crack!"

"What?" For some reason, Rogue looked to see that YES, there indeed was a butt crack (a very hairy butt crack at that). There was a construction crew working on a building along the sidewalk and a man that looked to be at least four hundred pounds had failed to pull up his pants as he bent down to pick something up.

"REMY!"

"What?" he asked innocently. "I just thought you wanted to see your future husband at work. Sheesh…"

She couldn't help but laugh. "Shut-up!"

"Did you want to get out and go see him?" He asked and actually slowed the car down.

"Stop it!"

"Stop the car?"

"No, stop being a doofus!"

"Fine, don't go to him." he said seriously. "But if that turns out to be your soul mate, don't get mad at Remy cause you missed out."

"I promise I won't." Rogue rolled her eyes.

Remy shrugged and then continued to drive.

"And if that's my boyfriend," Rogue looked around them and randomly pointed. "Then that's your girlfriend!"

"Rogue, that's a statue." Remy took his eyes off the road to do a double take. "It's a statue of a horse!"

Rogue gasped. "Ew! That's bestiality!"

Remy made a face. "That's not bestiality if it's a statue. That's just…weird."

"Oh, so you don't deny having a statue for a girlfriend? You are sick Remy, SICK!"

"Rogue," Remy said calmly.

"Yes?"

"There's a beetle in your hair."

"WHAT!" Rogue shrieked and frantically started rake her hands through her hair.

"Rogue."

"WHAT!"

"I was kidding."

And that was how Remy ended up with a big, red, hand-shaped mark on his upper arm. They found the grocery store soon afterward and after parking the car, Remy, rubbing his arm, and Rogue, trying to fix her hair, walked inside. The air-conditioner hit them as soon as they entered and they both sighed in pleasure. Maybe they were imagining it but the summer heat seemed to be worse right here on the beach.

"I'm sorry about the beetle thing," Remy said after Rogue grabbed a cart. "Can we be friends again?"

She shot him a glare but then sighed. "Of course," she grumbled.

"Good…cause I need your help with somethin."

A diabolical something. Remy tried not to grin. Now was the time to set his plan in motion. They walked over to the produce section and as she started throwing fruit into the cart, Rogue shrugged and spoke to him over her shoulder.

"Sure, what is it? Oh look, watermelons are only three bucks!" She looked excited as she started loading watermelons into the cart.

"It's kinda serious." He picked up a watermelon. "And kinda scary."

"Ok," she yawned but then perked up when they pulled up in front of the strawberries. "Go on, I'm listenin," she said though Remy wasn't sure she really was. Right now all her attention seemed to be on the strawberries. Oh well. It was as good a time as any.

"I'm in love."

Strawberries flew everywhere.

"WHAT!" Rogue shrieked.

"Um-"

"These strawberries are SIX FREAKIN DOLLARS for one carton! Hell no! HELL. NO!" Then Rogue shook her head and turned to look at him. "Sorry, did you say somethin?"

"Yes. I'm in love."

"With a MONKEY?" Rogue shrieked.

Remy stood there, not really sure what to say to that. Obviously NO, he was not in love with a monkey, but for Rogue to suggest so was very strange and it made no sense.

"What?" He asked in confusion.

Rogue pointed at something behind him. "The fair is comin to town and if we go we can get pictures taken with a monkey!"

Remy turned to see a big cardboard ad of a monkey and a few clowns, proudly boasting that you could indeed get your picture taken with a monkey. He didn't understand why anyone would want their picture with a monkey and also couldn't figure why this attracted Rogue's attention.

It was probably best if he just forgot about it.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Rogue said apologetically as he turned back to her. "I interrupted you again. Go on." She started pushing the cart again and turned around a corner. Remy followed after her, shaking his head.

"Ok, so what I'm trying to say is that I…I'm in lo-"

"OO FREE SAMPLES!" Rogue completely ditched the cart in favor of running off to get a free sample of ice cream.

Why had he hesitated? If he hadn't he could have gotten it out before she ran off to the free samples. And…wait a second…were those free samples of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream? That was (in Remy's opinion) only the best flavor of ice cream ever to grace the planet. All those chocolate chips and creamy vanilla and the little balls of dough…

"I got you one too," Rogue said as she skipped back over to where he stood and held a cup and a little plastic spoon out to him. "I know it's your favorite."

Remy knew he loved her for a reason. And that reason certainly wasn't her listening skills.

"I keep cuttin you off," Rogue shook her head and as she continued to push the cart and open her little cup of ice cream at the same time. "Sorry about that. What did you say?"

"I'm in love." He blurted before she could see anymore ice cream stands or monkeys or strawberry prices.

Rogue came to a dead stop and a woman with three kids on her heels, thinking she was stopping for her, thanked her and moved out of her isle. But Rogue didn't even notice her. She turned slowly and stared up at Remy with an open mouth.

"What?" She asked in shock. "With who?"

"Uh…No one you know. I met her before we left. She lives in Bayville."

"What's her name?"

"Jessica."

"Jessica?"

"Yes, but she likes to be called Jess." Remy spoke carefully, going over the story he had already made up of this 'Jessica'. He had thought about it so much, that if Rogue really wanted to know, he could tell her where Jessica worked, and what she looked like and where he met her and all about her personality.

"Where did you meet her?" Rogue demanded.

He raised his eyebrows at her tone. Odd that she sounded a little jealous. Was he imagining it? "I met her in the mall that one day when I went with Kitty." If she wanted to ask Kitty if it was true, the Kitty couldn't tell her no. Remy_ had_ gone to the mall with Kitty one day and he _had _disappeared for a short while. Of course, Kitty didn't know that the real reason he disappeared was because he was trying to ditch her. And she didn't know that he had spent more than half of that time away in line at Starbucks and the other half walking behind her and throwing little pieces of paper at her head and then ducking when she turned around.

"Well…" Rogue looked to be lost for words. The cup of ice cream in her hand was forgotten and hung limply. The look on her face wasn't one that Remy could easily decipher. She looked like she was torn between being upset and being in shock and then a touch of anger was there also.

Remy couldn't figure why that was there. Was his plan to make her so jealous she lost it coming together this easily?

Then, before he could think anymore on it, Rogue blinked and the look disappeared. "That's…great. Congratulations." But she said _congratulations_ the way you would say to someone _go screw yourself_. Then she was gone. She turned and was pushing the cart away from him and Remy was left to stare dazedly at the curve of her hips as she walked away…

And now he had to snap out of it.

"Wait up!" He called and jogged to catch up with her. "What's wrong with you, hm?" He walked alongside her now but she didn't turn to look at him. Instead, she turned sharply into an isle, grabbed a can of asparagus, and viciously flung it into the cart.

"I'm_ fine_." She snapped without looking at him. She didn't seem to be looking at anything she was pulling off of the shelves either. Now she was just jerking random cans of vegetables and throwing them in the cart.

_Women_. He didn't understand them. They were the most complex and confusing creatures on the planet. He'd never had a guy friend run off in a tiff without explaining why and then tell him he was fine. No, he had had a guy friend tell him why he was mad, then punch him in the face, then several hours later bought him a beer. Wasn't that the normal thing to do? Why didn't Rogue just punch him and then buy him lots and lots of alcoholic beverages? Remy didn't boast to be the smartest man in the world, but he did know that when a woman said that she was _fine_ she was most likely NOT fine. Sighing, he tried to get her attention.

"What's wrong? And don't go telling me you're _fine_, that makes you liar when you say that and don't mean it." Remy cringed. He shouldn't have said that. What made him say that? Rogue turned to him sharply and he couldn't help it—he took a step back and held up his hands. "What I meant was, why are you mad at Remy? I told you I'm in love, what's so horrible bout' that? You're not jealous, are you?" he asked and tried not to sound too happy.

Rogue's face paled. "Of course I'm not! I just…" She trailed off, not really knowing what she 'just'. Remy had said that he was in love and Rogue automatically knew who he was in love with. He said it was someone named Jessica, but she knew he was lying. Remy's eyebrow twitched when he lied. And when he said the name Jessica she knew he was lying. Nope, she knew who he was _really_ in love with.

And that was Kitty.

It had to be Kitty. Kitty had been staring at him for months, watching him like a hawk. Had Remy been watching her too and Rogue had missed it? She couldn't quite recall a time when she had seen Remy watch Kitty the way Kitty watched Remy, but it must have happened. He had gone to the mall with _Kitty_ and ended up in love? He must love her. He had to. Which brought her to why she was mad. Why did he think he had to make up some other girl? Why didn't he just say it was Kitty? Why was even telling her this in the first place? Why did he think she was jealous? Why didn't he know why she was upset when it was so obvious why she mad? _Men_. And WHY in the world did she suddenly not like Kitty?

Honestly though…Maybe Remy and Kitty wouldn't be so bad together. She could stomach that. They were both attractive, single people with similar interests…none that Rogue could remember at the moment, but they must have _some_ similar interests. But…she hated to admit it, but something about this whole thing bothered her. But then, she could always chalk it up to the fact that she was hungry. That biscuit hadn't really filled her up.

Yes, that was probably the problem.

"I'm sorry," she sighed. "I'm happy for you. Really, I am. I'm just um…"

"PMS?"

"Why do guys assume that when girls are mean they're on their period?" Rogue fumed. "A woman's menstrual cycle is A) none of your business and B) the way a woman acts on her period is the way that men act all the time!"

"Wow." He clenched his fists and bit his tongue. This woman could make him _so_ mad sometimes and over the stupidest things…

"I'm sorry," Rogue said calmly. "That was uncalled for. But DON'T EVER ask me if I'm on my period. Oh, and don't let me forget to get some tampons while we're here."

Remy gasped. "What!"

"You heard me."

The palm of his hand slapped into his forehead and then slowly trailed down the length of his face. _Women_. Why? Why? _Why?_ Why were they so _weird_? Were they all like this or was this just Rogue? What a stupid question. Of course they were all like this. If they were anything different then they wouldn't be the complex creatures that they were.

"Ok," he said slowly. "So…why are you mad?"

"I'm not mad."

"Why are you upset?"

"Because you're talkin about PMS!"

"BEFORE that. You were upset before."

"I wasn't upset." Rogue insisted as she grabbed a can of carrots.

"Alright, fine." He rolled his eyes. "I need your help."

She stopped and turned to regard him seriously. "With what?"

"I…" he tried to feign worried hesitation. "I don't think she'll take me as I am."

She stared. "Of course she will, why wouldn't she?"

Despite that her words made him a little happy inside, he continued. "She's…different. I really like her and I don't wanna mess it up. And I feel like the way I am now just ain't good enough."

Remy almost took a step back when he saw another flash of anger cross her face.

"What! If she can't take you the way you are then she ain't good enough for you and NOT worth your time." She snapped. "You don't need to change for anyone! If she don't like it then she can cry a river, build a bridge, and then get over it! How dare she! I don't know this woman, Remy, but I don't like her."

"Whoa, whoa, hang on now," he said calmly as he fought not to burst out into a big grin. "She didn't go askin Remy to change. She don't even know that I'm in love with her. I just want to better myself for her, is all. And I want ya to help me. Please?"

Hands on hips now, Rogue narrowed her eyes at him. "You want me to help you change? For a girl?"

"Yes," he said sadly and tried to use 'the face' just like Rogue liked to. He widened his eyes and poked his lip out, just like she did. But of course when she did it, she looked adorable. Unfortunately, Remy had the strong feeling that he just looked like an overgrown baby. "Pleeeease?" He pleaded.

"Don't use that face."

Remy widened his eyes.

"Stop it."

His lip came out to a ridiculous pout.

"Stop it now."

Blinking sadly, Remy sniffled.

"Remy!"

His lower lip was starting to tremble—maybe he wasn't as bad at this as he thought?

Rogue threw her hands in the air. "Ok! Fine! Fine! Just stop makin that face!"

"It's terrible, ain't it?" He shot at her.

"Yes," she agreed and shook her head. "I shouldn't have taught you that…"

"Yeah, well, the damage is done now. So you'll help me? Great!" He grinned. "So, first off: What does ol' Gambit need to change about his self to become more desirable?"

There was a long silence. Rogue just stared at him, slowly shaking her head. "Remy…" she said slowly. "Look, there's soup!"

And then she was gone, running down the isle to start picking up random cans of soup.

"Rogue," he said when he caught up with her. "You ain't helping. You said you'd help…do I need to do the face again?"

She whirled around to face him. "No!" Several cans of soup were dropped into the cart. "Fine, fine. OK…Ok…ok…"

"What great help you are."

"Shut-up, I'm thinkin."

"Ok."

She snapped her fingers. "Ok, I got it. You don't need to change. Be yourself. If that ain't good enough for her then she can go be with someone else-"

"Rogue."

"Fine!" Sighing, she looked him up and down and shrugged. "I don't know…how about…you get a haircut. It's kind of long."

"Ok."

"And I reckon you could use some new clothes. You wear that shirt all the time."

"I like this shirt."

"And you can be kind of annoyin sometimes, so try to tone it down."

"Hey!"

"And when you eat soup, you slurp. And when you chew on gum you smack it and that is really irritatin'. Oh! And you know that thing you do when we go on a mission and I'm busy kickin some guys ass and I'm doin a good job and then you run up and take him out and act like you've done me a favor?"

"Um, yes."

"Stop doin that."

"I doubt I'll be going on any missions with her."

Rogue smirked when his eyebrow twitched. She didn't understand why he just wouldn't say it was Kitty. Maybe he just wanted to keep it to himself? Well if that was the case she would be merciful and not mention it to him or anyone else. Obviously he didn't want her to know for some reason. This fact bugged her to no end but she wasn't going to press him about it.

"Maybe not," she played along, "but it's the principle of the thing. _Sometimes_ it's ok to come to a woman's rescue. Sometimes it's not. When I'm beatin up on one of the bad guys, _I'm_ doin it, it ain't your business to but in. Don't be so macho, I can take care of myself."

"Ok," he sighed. "When is it ok to come to a woman's rescue?"

She thought for a moment. "Say, if the car broke down and she's stuck in the middle of no where. Then it's ok. Then you're a hero. If she calls and asks for your help, that is."

"What?" He asked in utter perplexity. Women made _no sense_ at all.

"Yeah," she nodded. "Oh! And you do this really annoyin thing when we're watching TV. You take the remote and flip through the channels—but you flip through them so fast there's no way to tell what's on!"

"I can tell."

"But I can't! That's the point! Be more considerate of her needs. But don't be too observant. That's just creepy."

"I…am _very _confused."

"Good. That's normal. Tomato soup is your favorite, right?"

"Right," he nodded vaguely. He was pretty sure he was in over his head now. Women already confused the hell out of him but Rogue seemed to have so many different layers of complicated emotions and thought processes. How he was ever going to find his way through that mess, he didn't know.

He didn't know how he was going to do it, he didn't even know if he _could_ do it. But he knew one thing for certain. Rogue would be worth every minute of it.

**To Be Continued...**


	7. The Diabolical Seagulls

**Remy's Diabolical Plan**

**Chapter Seven: The Diabolical Seagulls**

**~X~**

Remy and Rogue spent exactly one hour and forty five minutes in the grocery store arguing, shopping, laughing and ooing and awing over the movie selection. No, buying movies (with Professor X's money) wasn't _exactly _a necessity some might say, but neither was the popcorn or the sodas or the mountains of junk food or the beach towels. They had already bought so many other unnecessary things that buying a few movies didn't seem like such a bad idea.

And the board games…Well, they actually _needed _those.

Eventually they had finished shopping and rolled two carts full up to the check out line, unloaded everything, loaded it back up, stared in awe at the cashier when she told them the price, handed over the Professor's card, brought the groceries out to the van, unloaded it all again, and then were in the van and driving back to the house past the horse statue and the construction site and the many people all in their swimsuits.

The town they were in was small and quaint and everyone seemed nice. Actual, everyone here seemed to be a little nicer than normal…Remy immediately dubbed them all as 'creepy' as they watched everyone smiling and waving and chatting with each other. Rogue adamantly agreed. No one could be that nice without having a hidden, creepy agenda. There were trees along every street lining the sidewalks, more people were walking than driving, and every restaurant and shop seemed to be have someone's name in the title.

The sun revealed many things to them about their settings that the darkness had concealed from them the night before. The house was a few miles from the rest of civilization, proving that it really was a _private_ beach house. The long driveway leading to the house was at least a mile long and completely surrounded by oak trees the entire way. Once you came to the end of it, it curved to the left and when you turned, you got the most spectacular and beautiful view of the ocean. The house seemed taller than it had in the dark and the white shutters and porch was nearly blinding when you looked straight at them while the sun was shining bright. The beach was littered with spots of beach grass, seashells and right now, several sea gulls. Way off down the beach to the right of house they could make out a big cliff that they might have been tempted to jump off of if it weren't for the dangerous looking jagged rocks protruding from the water at the bottom.

The others were all on the porch when they came up, sitting on the rocking chairs and the swing and talking. Remy told them that they needed help with all the groceries and Scott (looking way too serious for a simple request for help with carrying some bags) stood up and said, "You heard him, team! Let's go!" Grumbling, everyone followed.

Scott nearly had a heart attack when they opened the back door of the van and he saw everything.

"You were supposed to get things that we _needed_!" He gasped as he took in the sight of the trunk section and the backseat of the van jammed with bags and boxes.

"We did," Remy said obliviously.

Scott gawked at the trunk of the van. "You bought ten twenty-four packs of sodas! How _could you_?! You know Kurt can't handle his caffeine!"

Kurt hung his head.

"That's why we got him caffeine free lemon-lime soda!" Rogue said happily and pointed to one of the boxes.

Kurt perked up.

"That's not the point." Scott argued. "The point is—wait, is that Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit?" Then he turned on them with wide, horrified eyes. "YOU BOUGHT BOARD GAMES?!" He screeched.

"Calm down," Remy held up his hands. "I paid for those."

"You did?"

"Of _course_." Remy replied, sounding very honest.

"Oh," Scott relaxed and turned back to the van. "Ok then…"

Behind his back, Remy shook his head and mouthed 'NO' to everyone else except for Jean who also had her back turned. This caused everyone else to start giggling and Scott whirled around on them suspiciously.

"Why is everyone laughing?" He screeched. "What! What is it?"

"Nothin, Scotty." Remy said innocently.

"Don't call me that."

"Scooty Scott."

"Don't call me that either!"

"Scooty Scooter Skitchy Scott."

"Ah!"

"Skippy Scott."

"Remy, for the love of-"

"Look how lovely that blue sky looks, Scott," Remy said suddenly and flung an arm around Scott's shoulders. "And those clouds are real fluffy, ain't they? Don't ya just love summer?"

Scott looked lost. "I think the sky is blue anytime of the year, Rems."

"And the smell of that air!" Remy said enthusiastically and breathed in deeply. "All salty and warm…"

"I get that you're trying to distract me," Scott said, "but we need to get a move on because we're supposed to meet that guy at one."

"You called him?" Rogue asked before picking up on of the heavy boxes of drinks. Shaking his head, Remy came up and took it from her along with two more boxes.

"Yes," Scott replied as he too picked up some of the drinks. "He gave me directions to where he works; we're supposed to meet him down on the docks."

"What's his name?" Tabitha asked as she loaded down both arms with bags.

Over the top of the boxes in his arms, they could see Scott looked a little sheepish. "I never got the opportunity to find out." He shrugged as he climbed the steps of the porch. "He's one of those people who like to talk—thanks," he said to Amara as she held the front door open for him. "But he kept talking and talking and by the time he stopped, we had been talking for so long that asking his name at that point would have been rude…" He finished his story just as he reached the kitchen counter and he set down the heavy boxes of drinks.

Kurt, who had been teleporting things in and out of the house, had already brought nearly half of the things in the time it had taken Remy, Scott, and Tabitha one trip.

"Hurry up slow pokes," he told them in a provoking tone, "You're just embarrassing yourselves." And he teleported away again.

"Show off," Scott rolled his eyes as he turned around to head back to the car.

Thanks to Kurt, it didn't take very long to unload the van. It took a little longer to put everything up since every time Scott pulled junk food out of a bag, he would turn white and say shrilly, "What is this!?" Kurt, however, was thrilled when he discovered that Rogue had picked him up some boxes of pancake mix and four different flavors of syrup. Kitty complained about one of the movies they had picked out, Scott complained when he realized that they had bought movies, Amara complained about the laundry detergent they had gotten, Jean complained that they were all so loud they were giving her a headache, Tabitha complained that they got the toilet paper with the little girl on the front and the little girl creeped her out, and Rogue excitedly told everyone about how the fair was coming to town and that they could get their pictures taken with a monkey.

This served to cheer everyone up a bit. Except for Remy because he still didn't get why anyone would want their picture taken with a monkey.

After they all piled into the car, Remy and Rogue found out that Jean and Kurt's mission to get a lay of the land proved that they should probably rent another car. Scott had already gotten approval from Professor X for it but since none of them were old enough and the credit card didn't have any of their names on it, the professor had mysteriously said that he would take care of it. He had also told them that he had hired someone to prepare the house for them after Scott asked him about it, and he requested that they keep the flowers in the backyard watered. No one had even seen the backyard yet but Scott had agreed and wondered why Professor X sounded so happy.

Since his ankle was feeling better, Scott was able to drive again. He took them back into town, down a giant hill, past the construction site (and Remy happily pointed out Rogue's future husband to everyone) past the horse statue (and Rogue pointed out Remy's future wife to everyone), around a big curve, down another hill, past a stretch of restaurants and then into a random parking lot where he turned around, claiming he was lost. So he turned around and drove back past all of the restaurants, up a hill, around a curve, past the horse statue, past the construction site, and then finally to the bottom the first big hill that they had gone down when they had first started.

"We're here!" He said and sighed sadly before hopping out of the car.

Everyone followed. Scott seemed to know where he was going now, or at least they hoped so as they followed him down a set of wooden stairs and then onto the docks. There was one big main dock with several other smaller docks branching off of it that had a few boats tied to them. But at this time of the day, most of the boats were gone. They stayed on the main one, following Scott down the path and breathing in the scent of fish and salt water.

Before anyone could ask Scott where he was leading them, a man appeared from one from one of the boats. In first appearance, he seemed intimidating. But once they drew closer they could see that he was smiling and he didn't look all that mean. Rogue vaguely recognized him. She knew she had seen him before but only in passing, never because she had spoken directly to him.

He was tall. He easily towered over all of them, including the guys. His hair was brown and wispy and if he had been shorter they might have been able to see where he was starting to go bald in the back. A big brown beard and mustache covered half of his face. He wore a simple white t-shirt and brown overalls and worn looking boots. The skin of his arms and face and neck were heavily tanned and muscled from years of work out in the sun, and several scars could be seen on his arms and over callused hands.

"Hi there," he greeted them in deep, rumbling voice. "Are you Scott?"

Nodding, Scott stopped and peered up at him. He held out his hand. "I am, nice to meet you."

"Yeah," he shook Scott's offered hand. "Nice to meet you. My name's-"

_SCREEE!_

A seagull flew over their heads at that exact moment, efficiently blocking out the rest of the hairy man's sentence.

Scott hesitated before saying, "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that. Your name is?"

"That's ok," he said politely, "My name's-"

_SCRAW!_

The same seagull flew over them again.

"Uh…" Scott was left feeling very confused. Should he ask his name again? He didn't want to look stupid, but he didn't want to not know this mans name! "That's a nice name." He tried, hoping the man might say it again. "Where did that come from?"

The man scratched his beard in thought. "I think my mother named me after her favorite dog…Personally I hate the name, but we take what we get." He shrugged. "So, looks like you brought the whole group. I recognize some of you but I don't quite remember your names…"

"Oh," Scott turned and started pointing the others out. "That's Jean, Kurt, Rogue, Remy, Kitty, Amara, and Tabitha."

"Wow, that's a lot of names," he remarked but smiled at them all anyway. "Nice to meet you all, my name is-"

_SCREEEEECH!_

"-but I'm sure you already heard me say that." He finished.

Scott eyed the offending seagull, seriously contemplating on whether to lift up his glasses and make it shut-up. Everyone, trying not to look confused, nodded and smiled anyway, all of them growing more and more irritated with the bird. Honestly, the stupid thing was so loud that the Professor all the way back in Bayville had probably heard it.

All in the way back in Bayville, Charles rolled quietly down the quiet halls. Smiling, he listened to the muted sound that the wheels of his chair made on the carpet. He turned into the quiet library, and made his way along the shelves quietly. All the books were there, the house was clean, and most importantly, it was quiet. Very quiet. Charles smiled again and then found the book he was looking for. Quietly he rolled to a table and quietly cracked the book open to happily read _quietly_.

Back at the beach, the hairy fisherman was smiling at them. "So," he said, "should we just jump right into this?"

"Yes sir!" Scott replied seriously.

"Um…ok."

The nice, hairy fisherman led them down one of the smaller docks where his boat was tied. Already sitting on the dock was a large, half cylinder shaped mesh and wooden lobster trap. He stood over this and pointed.

"That's a lobster trap. I put these in the water from one to three days and wait for the lobsters to gather in there. But ever since the lobster fishing season started—that was a few weeks ago—I haven't caught one lobster because someone keeps coming in the night and pulling them out of the water, letting out my catch, and then breaking the traps." He sighed. "And at fifty dollars for one of these-" he pointed to the trap at his feet, "Plus line, buoys, bait bags, bait, and gear, the price is really racking up on me. At this point I'm losing money."

"Don't worry sir," Scott said curtly, "The X-men are here to help and we won't let you down!"

"I knew you wouldn't," the hairy fisherman nodded and smiled. "Charles is a good friend of mine. It's a shame he didn't come with you though."

"Yes sir."

"Oh son, don't call me that, it makes me feel old." The fisherman said, "you can call me-"

"Ah!" Kurt screamed shrilly. "A bee!" And then he proceeded to frantically twist around before simply turning and running off.

"I don't see a bee…" Tabitha murmured as she looked around for this supposed bee.

Shaking his head, Scott turned back to the fisherman. "Ok, so here's the plan. You go out like normal and put one of these traps down. Then later we'll stake it out and wait to see who shows up…How far out do you usually put these traps?"

"I can put it where you'll see it well."

"Excellent. And how will we know where it is?"

"I'll tie this," he nodded to the trap, "to a buoy. Pretty simple stuff."

"Right." Scott nodded. "And what time do you leave at night?"

"When the sun goes down…about eight thirty."

Before Scott could say anything else, Kitty phased through him (causing him to yelp and jump a foot in the air) and with hands on hips, regarded the hairy fisherman with a firm glare.

"And what do you say about murdering innocent lobsters?" She asked him in an accusing tone. "They're just walking along the ocean floor, all nice and cheery and think they've found a good snack when bam! They're stuck in your traps! And then they get hauled off and boiled alive and MMFM!"

Scott's hand clamped over Kitty's mouth as he looked at the man in front of him sheepishly. "Sorry about her—lately she's kind of got this thing where she wants to defend animals. I don't know where it came from OOOWW!"

Kitty's jaws clamped down on the hand covering her mouth before she remembered that she could just phase through it.

"Ow," Scott whimpered and drew his throbbing hand to his chest, ignoring everyone's snickers behind him (and Jean's 'Oh my god, are you alright?') as Kitty stood up to the fisherman again.

"YOU, sir, are a murderer!" Kitty told him firmly.

"Oh God," Scott shook his head.

But the fisherman didn't seem upset by this or even angry. Instead, he seemed to be amused. Though whether that was because of the subject or because or Kitty's size, they couldn't tell. He chuckled softly as he looked down (it seemed like several feet) at her.

"Hey there, squirt, what's your name again?"

Kitty seemed highly offended by this and stood up as straight as she could. "I'm not a squirt! I'm a grown woman!"

"How old are you?"

"Seventeen…"

"Then you're not quite grown yet, are you?"

Kitty looked about ready to deck him. "HEY! You…whatever your name is! I am SO! You're just-"

"Calm down squirt," he continued to chuckle, "My name's-"

"Hey boss!"

Just like in a horror movie, a man appeared from seemingly nowhere off of the boat that they had been standing next to the whole time. Everyone yelped and jumped back except for the fisherman, who apparently knew he was there the whole time, and Kurt, who was standing far off down the deck and hiding from invisible bees.

Scott's hand shot to his visor, Remy procured three charged cards from his back pocket, and both of Amara's hands held two identical balls of fire.

The man that had come from the boat paused with wide eyes as he took all of them in. He looked exactly like fisherman what's-his-name except that his face was clean shaven and his hair was thicker. "What did I do?" He asked slowly and he looked afraid to move.

"Nothing," Scott said quickly as he lowered his hand. The others followed his lead; Remy's cards disappeared and Amara's fire was put out.

"Your phone was ringing," the new fisherman said slowly.

"Right," he replied and nodded. "I'm expecting a call so I'll have to excuse myself for now. Do you want me to set out the traps tonight?" He asked Scott who nodded. "Ok then. I'll see you again at eight thirty?"

"Sounds good," Scott said approvingly. "Alright team, lets-" He started to say but when he turned he found that his team (even his girlfriend) was already walking away down the dock away from him. Sighing, he followed.

**To Be Continued...**


	8. Too Much Diabolical-ness

**A/N: I meant to update and reply to the reviews, but the website has been acting weird for me over the weekend and wouldn't let me. Am I the only one? Anyway, thank you for the reviews! I_ freaking_ love reviews. **

**Remy's Diabolical Plan**

**Chapter Eight: Too Much Diabolical-ness**

**~X~**

When they all finally were back in the van, everyone wanted to go somewhere different. Amara, Tabitha, and Kitty all wanted to go clothes shopping (swimsuit shopping mainly), Kurt wanted to go find out which restaurants served the best breakfast (he refrained from saying pancakes but they all knew that was what he was thinking), Scott wanted to go home and talk over the new mission, and Jean looked torn between agreeing with Scott and agreeing with the other girls. Remy and Rogue didn't have any preference (though they didn't really want to go home and do more work) so they just kept naming random things to do mostly just to confuse and annoy the others. It was working.

"Look, I'm the one driving, so I'm going to drive us home-" Scott argued as he attempted to pull out of their parking spot.

"You do that and I'm grabbing the wheel!" Tabitha screeched.

"You will do no such thing!"

"Watch me!"

"Scott, honey," Jean said hesitantly, "maybe we should take a little break from working first and then go home…to you know, boost team morale."

"Well…Ok then, that makes sense."

Kurt made a whipping sound from the backseat. "Dude, you're whipped!"

"I am not whipped!" Scott yelped.

"Speakin of whips," Remy said as he tried not to laugh, "lets go to the rodeo!"

"OO, the rodeo!" Rogue said with false enthusiasm.

"That's animal abuse!" Kitty said disapprovingly. "And if you think it's not, then run off, I'll throw a lasso around you and drag you through the dirt and then you can try to tell me it's not abuse."

"Uh…" Remy paused. "You're right, we should find an arcade instead."

"Or the movies," Rogue said.

"Or—I know!" Remy said excitedly. "Let's go to one of them places where they put you in a fat suit and then you wrestle like sumo wrestlers!"

"Awesome!" Rogue grinned and she and Remy high fived.

The van fell silent.

"What?" Remy asked and looked around as everyone stared at the two of them. "No one wants to sumo wrestle?"

They ended up go to a place called 'Fat Bob's Malt Shoppe' where they all purchased different flavored malts. They also got to meet Fat Bob, who turned out to be ninety pounds, eighty-years-old, and bald. When they questioned him about the name of the shop, he explained that he used to weigh more before he finally shed the pounds in nineteen fifty eight but by then he had already named the shop and didn't want to change the name. Then he introduced them to his son, Fatter Bob, who now owned the shop. Fatter Bob was a lot heavier than Fat Bob, and he had a lot more hair.

It was while Scott was distracted by talking to Fatter Bob that everyone else (except for Jean who looked at them half with disapproval and half with longing) escaped and ran loose through the town. Amara and Tabitha ran into the first clothes store they saw, Kurt teleported without saying where he was going, and Kitty headed for the beach. Remy and Rogue followed after her at a leisurely pace, walking along the sidewalk and taking in their new surroundings.

Rogue watched Remy out of the corner of her eye, wondering if he was looking to where Kitty was up ahead of them. And she also wondered something else. If Remy was in love with Kitty, why did he hang around her so much and not Kitty? Maybe she had assumed wrong, maybe he wasn't in love with Kitty but in love with some girl named Jessica. Or…maybe he wasn't the kind of person to ditch his friends when he fell for someone. Or maybe his love for Kitty just wasn't the real thing? What if he thought he loved Kitty, but he...didn't?

But these thoughts were all washed away when she saw that he really was keeping a steady gaze in front of them to where Kitty was, walking way up ahead. That was annoying. If he would rather be with her, why didn't he just go up there? Rogue rolled her eyes. It didn't make any sense. If Remy would just be honest with Kitty about his feelings then he might not be standing here, suffering in her company when he could be with the one that he really wanted to be with.

Remy (unbeknownst to Rogue) was enjoying himself. He was in a new place, the weather was nice, the air smelled good, he had just had a really good strawberry malt, and best of all, the woman he loved was walking next to him. He had been watching her out of the corner of his eye, (catching little peaks of her when she wasn't looking was a favorite pastime of his) but had looked away quickly when she looked over at him. Staring at a woman that was supposed to be your good buddy wasn't normal behavior for just a 'buddy' and so he couldn't let her see him looking. But the longer he kept his gaze trained on the sight of Kitty, walking way up ahead of them, the longer she stared at him. She wasn't just looking out of the corner of her eye at him anymore, either. Now her whole head was turned his way and she was barely watching where she was walking.

"You could take a picture," he drawled as he continued to watch Kitty up ahead. "But then I still wouldn't know why you were lookin at me."

"Sorry," she muttered and turned her gaze away from him. "Just thinkin."

"Bout…?" He questioned and turned his gaze away from Kitty to her.

She sighed but didn't look over again. "Well, to be honest, I was thinkin about how you're in love with Kitty and you lied and said you were in love with some girl named Jessica."

Remy tripped over a fire hydrant.

"Remy!" Rogue yelped and rushed to his side.

He blinked in confusion up at the blue sky. How had he gotten on the ground? Why did his head hurt? Did Rogue say something about Kitty? And also—OO, Rogue was gripping his bicep. He flexed and held it like that.

"Remy," she leaned over him but then paused. "Wow, your muscles are huge. I mean—are you ok?"

"I-" he started to say that he was fine, if a little dazed, before he remembered what had gotten him on the ground in the first place. "Wait, you think I'm in love with Kitty?" He yelped. "Why would you think _that_?"

"Keep your voice down," Rogue glanced around, noting that more than one person was staring at them. She scooped a hand under his arm and tugged. "Come on; let's get you off the ground. Is your head ok?"

"Its fine," He grumbled as he slowly stood up. The world was a little crooked at the moment, but there wasn't anything wrong with that. Right? "Just tell me why ya said _that._"

"Maybe because it's true," she said this as though it were obvious. "Can you hold yourself up or do you need help?" She asked but before he had answered she had already let go of his arm and continued walking as if nothing were out of the ordinary.

Blinking in an attempt to rid himself of the dizziness, Remy followed. "Don't say that," he rubbed the back of his head and grimaced. "I ain't in love with Kitty. Why'd you think that anyway?"

"Cause…she keeps starin at you."

"I've noticed that," he remarked and looked up ahead for Kitty. Thankfully, she was no where to be seen now and so didn't hear any of this conversation. He didn't know why Kitty stared at him so much. He had never thought to ask. The thought that she might have thing for him had never crossed his mind. It certainly wouldn't surprise him, and he couldn't blame her if she did, but he couldn't say that he was interested. But he had always thought that she watched him so much because she was nosy and that's what nosy people did.

"Right," Rogue nodded without looking at him. "And you love her back."

"Whoa, wait," he touched her arm and they both stopped to turn to one another. "Love her _back_? You sayin that she loves me?"

Rogue crossed her arms as though this whole conversation was pointless and was bothering her. "You would like that, wouldn't you?"

"Um—NO."

"Whatever, just keep lyin about it, Remy."

"What!" He spluttered. "I ain't lyin! I don't love Kitty!"

"Yes you do!" Rogue glared. "Stop lyin!"

"I'm NOT!"

"Yes you are, your eyebrow is twitchin."

"That's because the wind is blowing this way and I don't wanna get sand in my eye," he said, starting to get angry at this cycle. He _wasn't_ in love with Kitty; he was in love with the impossible woman in front of him! Why couldn't she understand that it wasn't Kitty that he loved, but some made up woman named Jessica? How hard was that to understand? Not at all, that's how hard! And his eyebrow twitching—well, he had learned that he did that a long time ago and taken care of the problem. Now he could lie all he wanted without any eyebrows twitching, except when he made them twitch. But the wind really was blowing sand in their direction at the current moment.

"Liar!"

"Fine," he fumed, "maybe I'll just turn toward the wind and get sand all in my eyes and go blind. You'd like that, I'm sure."

"Oh, don't be so dramatic!" She shot at him before turning towards the wind. "It's not blowin any sand, anyway. You're makin that up just like you're makin all this other—AH!"

"What's wrong?"

"Dammit!" She cursed and ducked her face away from the wind, frantically rubbing her eye with a thumb. "I got sand in my eye."

"I told you!" He said, trying not to feel too satisfied.

"Shut-up! This all your fault."

"What!" He gaped. "How is it my fault that you got sand in your eye?"

"It's your fault because you lied so much about everything else-"

"No I didn't!"

"-and so I didn't believe you when you said that sand was in the wind…you cat lover."

"…What?" He asked, confused, before it finally clicked. "Stop it! I don't love Kitty!"

"Fine," she shrugged as she continued to rub at her eye, "Just keep denying it."

"Fine," he shot back, "just keep being delusional!"

A tense silence fell. A one eyed Rogue glared at Remy but Remy wasn't backing down, he glared right back. How dare she assume that he was lying about something? Even though he really was lying (but Rogue hadn't caught on to that yet), it didn't give her the right to be…insightful. And yet not insightful at all. Maybe he was getting upset so easily by this because Rogue had kind of caught him, but not really caught him? He didn't like it. If he didn't go about this carefully, then his whole plan would fall apart. At the moment he was finding it hard to remember how he and Rogue had ever gotten along. Her jaw was clenched and her eyes said the same thing his did at the moment: _I'm not going to lose_.

And he wasn't. He couldn't let her go off thinking he was in love with Kitty because that couldn't be a good thing. If Rogue wasn't so close to Kitty he might be able to say yes, that he had lied and really did love her and not 'Jessica'. But if he said that to Rogue, she would probably back off and let Kitty have him.

And he didn't want Kitty to have him.

Not that Kitty even wanted him in the first place.

He sighed and dropped his guard. "No more fightin for now," he said calmly. "Can we be friends again?" He reached out to pat her on the head like he always did…only to get his hand slapped away.

"No!"

And he was instantly mad again.

"You're _impossible!_" He nearly shouted, causing a few birds on the tree next to them to fly off in alarm. "What the hell do you want me to SAY?"

"I want you to say the truth!"

"I HAVE fifty billion times! But you just gonna keep yammering on and on like an annoyin little bird that makes me want to tear my own ears off just so I won't have to listen to you anymore!"

With a look of pure fury on her face, Rogue opened her mouth to retort when a distant sound made them both stop. They listened in silence as the sound drew closer and closer until…

"It's the ice cream truck!" She squealed happily before shoving her hand into her pocket and searching for any change.

Remy copied her actions, hurriedly reaching around for his wallet. They had already had ice cream two times that day, but it was just _wrong_ to the hear the ice cream truck coming and NOT run to it. It was especially impossible for two adult children to ignore that music and not get happy and excited inside. Most of the time when this happened at home the others looked at them as though they were insane and shook their heads as they ran out the door. Now people on the street who had witnessed their fight were staring at them and wondered just how they had managed to break out of the mental hospital.

The ice cream man stopped the truck and looked a little surprised to see two adults there along with a few kids that had run up. But he didn't say anything as he handed over the fudgesicle and banana pop that they ordered.

Once they were back on the sidewalk, now quiet and happily eating their ice cream as they walked, Remy sighed happily. There was nothing like an ice cold fudgesicle after a fight on a hot, summer day. Really, there was nothing like ice cream. Whether it was chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, a strawberry malt, or a fudgesicle, Remy had a considerable weak spot when it came to ice cream. Of course, he would never tell anyone this; that just wasn't manly. Men were supposed to like things like big chunks of steak and maybe the occasional potato. Sometimes an onion was ok, and a mushroom every now and then, but frozen treats were not manly.

Remy was getting hungry and for some real food this time. He turned to Rogue, intending to ask if she wanted to head into the next restaurant, but she spoke before he had the chance to.

"I'm sorry," she nudged him with her elbow affectionately. "You're right, I was being delusional…if you say you're not in love with Kitty…well, I don't believe you, but can we be friends again anyway?"

"It's not Kitty, I swear," he sighed but smiled and patted the top of her head. "But of course we can. There ain't nothin I want more."

Yes there was. But he was a patient man and he could wait.

"Except for Kitty," Rogue muttered and turned back to her banana pop.

"Stop that!"

"You stop it."

Remy grimaced. Maybe being so patient wasn't a good idea. He needed to hurry this along.

**To Be Continued...**


	9. Rogue's Diabolical Driving

**A/N: Thanks so much for the reviews! They're so appreciated and they help me write faster. Someone asked if there would be more couples in later chapters. The answer is yes. **

**Down below:_ Mi __niña hermosa _means my beautiful girl and _querido _means darling. At least I'm pretty sure it does. **

**~X~**

**Remy's Diabolical Plan**

**Chapter Nine: Rogue's Diabolical Driving**

**~X~**

When Remy was six years old, he liked a girl named Betsy Winger. Remy didn't know Betsy from squat but he did know that she had pretty brown hair that she always kept in a braid down her back. He also knew that she a particular liking for dandelions. And so Remy put two and two together—he liked Betsy and Betsy liked dandelions. So it just seemed like the right thing to do to pick a dandelion for Betsy and offer it to her. Betsy, however, didn't have the same logic. Betsy squealed 'Ew!' and then ran away. Years later Remy would realize that it wasn't particularly him that made her react this way, it was just their age. Yet this did nothing to lessen the hurt. Rejection was never a fun thing to experience, and little six year old Remy's heart was broken.

Eight years later when he was freshmen in high school, Remy asked out a girl (he couldn't recall her name but he could remember that she had the longest and curliest brown hair, all bouncy and thick) to some dance…only to get turned down. It might have been because she looked a little frightened of his eyes, or it could have been because he had stuttered so badly that it had taken him two minutes to get his sentence out. Whatever the reason, she said no, but at least she was polite about it and didn't scream ew.

Four weeks later Remy figured he should sign up for some kind of extra curricular activities. Actually, the principle had strongly suggested it since Remy was what you would call a 'wild child' and couldn't keep out of trouble. Not knowing (and not really caring) what he wanted to do, Remy signed up for what seemed like the coolest thing. There was a guitar program that taught you how to play the guitar. One week after that, his guitar instructor, who had had many a migraine that week, told him that he had absolutely zero musical talent and that it would be pointless to continue. So Remy happily stole all of his guitar picks and then left without looking back.

Two years later, after lots of practicing in the mirror, Remy got his first date. Her name was Samantha and she had dark eyes and dark hair to match and she was the quietest person in school. He had taken her to a movie…only to be turned away because the movie was rated R and he clearly wasn't an adult. This, he thought had ruined the date because he had really wanted to see that movie, but Samantha hadn't minded and they had had a nice time, even though they had fallen into many awkward silences all throughout.

When he finally finished high school, Remy knew what he wanted to do with his life. And that was to be a wonderful, happy, honest to God thief that stole people's hard earned money and took things that didn't belong to him. He wanted to do whatever he felt like doing, and most of time he did. When he needed money he took it. When he wanted a woman he worked for it. When he had the strong urge to blow up rich people's cars, he blew up rich people's cars. And he was happy. That is, until he saw her.

Up until that point in his life, she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. She was red and chrome and leather and she was the most gorgeous motorcycle on the planet.

Remy had to have it. He had never known what love really was until he saw that bike. It begged him to rescue it from that behind that window and so he heeded its silent command and marched right into that dealership and said that he wanted to buy it…only to be rejected because he didn't have any credit and he didn't have a legitimate job to prove that he could pay for it. So Remy made a silent promise to his precious bike that he would be back and he stalked out of that place.

It was later that night, when he had successfully broken into the dealership after it had closed and had just taken Roseangela (his name for the bike), that Remy came to a decision in his mind. He wouldn't ever fail again and he wouldn't let himself be rejected because he wouldn't put himself in any situation where that had a possibility of happening.

That is, until he fell for her. Then it all went out the window. There were three things that you learned about Remy from this story. One) he had a developed a deep fear for rejection, two) his fear of rejection had also created a fear for failure and three) he obviously had a thing for brunettes. Although lately just a head of dark hair wasn't enough to satisfy him, now it had to at least have _one_ white streak in it somewhere or it just wasn't worth looking at.

His fear of rejection was still perfectly intact, but now there was different logic. Before it had been—why would I ask her out when I know she's going to reject me? But now it was much more complex than that. He had to ask himself questions like—If I don't try to get her, then won't someone else grab her up? What if she's the only one I'll feel like this about again? If I'm afraid, doesn't that make me a wuss?

No matter how many times he went over it in his mind, Remy felt like he was fourteen years old all over again. He had spent weeks just trying to muster up the courage to ask that girl out, telling himself that he shouldn't, and then telling himself to just do it. If only he had the courage that he had when he was six, this might be different.

But it wasn't like this with every woman. No, Remy Lebeau was a womanizer. During his later high school years and afterwards was when he perfected his craft and learned how to make a woman say yes to him. All it took was a smirk and a little showing of his dimple. But that was _different_. He didn't like rejection but if one of those ladies had said no (and that was a rare thing) he wouldn't have cared. They were a dime a dozen; if one said no he would go to the next one and she would say yes. But with Rogue…if she said no…Remy couldn't say exactly how it would feel but all he knew was that the world would end, ice cream wouldn't taste good anymore, picking at Scott wouldn't be funny, and everything that was alive would whither and die. This might be a tad over dramatic but it was how he felt.

Remy was a private person, very rarely sharing his feelings unless he was fighting with Rogue over stupid, non-important things when she made him mad about something. No one knew that he had such deep rooted fears inside of him and no one but Rogue knew that he called his beloved motorcycle Roseangela. He didn't like to talk about his feelings because it just made him uncomfortable to do so. Even talking about his made up feelings for 'Jessica' made him uncomfortable.

But he would put it all aside. He was terrified, but he couldn't care because he had to have her. If he didn't have Rogue…he wasn't going to think about it. No, instead, he was going to think about the book in his lap. He was having some difficulty in thinking up his next move for his plan. So he turned to Alejandro for answers.

Alejandro was the lead male character (and Remy's great inspiration) in the book that had given him his plan in the first place. As he swung quietly in the porch swing, Remy flipped through the pages of _Diabolical Seduction_ as he searched for a clue of how to proceed. Alejandro was nothing like Remy—he was overly confident throughout the whole book that he would make Rosita fall for him and perhaps this was what ultimately gave him success. He stopped on a page and read…

_Rosita flung herself into Alejandro's arms, desperate to feel his warm, sculpted body against the contours of her bosom. Just being in this man's presence that reeked masculinity was enough to give her a high like never before. He had changed for her; he had become the perfect man that she had always dreamed of. _

"_Oh Alejandro, my love, my querido, take me to bed tonight and make me a real woman!" She pleaded with him, wanting more than anything to feel more of him. Just the thought of him drove her wild. If she had to go one more night without him in her bed, she wouldn't be able to keep herself from attacking and ravishing him the next time she saw him. _

"_Mi __niña hermosa,__ I love you, don't ever doubt that! But, Rosita! Alejandro Rodrigo Diego is an honorable man! I cannot take you to bed when we are not married!"_

"_Alejandro! Are you-"_

_Alejandro's pressed a finger to Rosita's red, luscious lips. "Yes, yes my love! You will marry me—tonight!"_

Remy nodded in appreciation. Alejandro really did know how to work it. Maybe it was because he always said things so urgently? After every thing Alejandro ever said there was always an exclamation point afterwards. This might have been his secret. But this wasn't the part of the book that Remy had been searching for. He flipped backwards through the pages…

"_If you don't tell me who this other woman is-" Rosita screamed in fury, "I will KILL MYSELF!"_

Nope, that wasn't the part he was looking for either. Remy turned the page—

_Alejandro dropped to his knees, reaching his arms towards the heavens in agony. "NOOOOOOOOOOO! SOMEONE! Someone call a medic! ROOOOOSIIIIITAAAAA!"_

"Wonderful writing," Remy murmured as he continued to search the book. It seemed that he couldn't find the point of the story that he was looking for so Remy gave up with a sigh. Instead, he grinned and turned to his favorite part.

"_Alejandro! Take me, I'm all yours!" Rosita tore off her dress and threw herself to the bed, beckoning Alejandro to follow. _

_He did follow, but slowly, patiently, crawling towards her with a look of a predator in his eyes. Alejandro's eyes raked over her body hungrily, trailing over her heaving bosom, flat stomach and all the way to her-_

"Hey Rems, whatcha' readin'?"

Remy flung the book over the railing of the porch, into the bushes and turned to smile at Kitty as she sat next to him on the swing.

"Nothin' at all, petite." He said lightly.

Kitty narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Yes you were; I saw you."

"No, I wasn't," he argued as though he had no idea what she was talking about.

"Yes you were! I saw you throw the book into those bushes." She pointed over the railing.

"And I saw you the other day pickin' your nose but Remy didn't say nothin' about it, did he?"

Kitty gasped. "What! When?"

Remy blinked confusedly. "Does it matter?"

"No, I guess not." Kitty grumbled, her face turning slightly pink.

"Right," Remy clapped his hands happily and stood up. "So, you don't mention anythin' about my book and I don't mention that you dig for gold in your nose! Deal!"

"Jerk," Kitty crossed her arms and harrumphed.

Remy only grinned in response and leapt over the porch railing to grab his book and then back over again to go inside.

It had been a week since they had arrived at the beach house. During that time they had fallen into a routine that mostly revolved around working, much to most of the team's dismay. After the fisherman (they still hadn't caught his name) had put down the trap that day, they had all gone out that night and staked it out, boringly watching the orange buoy floating on the water. But no one had ever come. The trap had stayed there for three days and two nights and no one had tried to sabotage it. When the fisherman had pulled it back out again, he was surprised to find that he had caught a good many lobsters. It was his first catch of the season, he told them, and happily thanked them all.

But their job was far from done. They still needed to catch whoever it was, so the next day the fisherman put out five more traps and then three days later (yesterday) he had pulled them back out to find lobsters and not one broken trap. Either someone knew that they were there and were watching, or they had given up. Either way, they would have to stay longer to find out.

Their routine was mostly revolved around work because the fisherman watched the buoys during the day, but during the night they kept an eye out. By the time that they got home in the morning, they were so sleepy from staying up all night that they slept all day. They started going in twos every night, everyone getting their own shift. Amara and Tabitha, Jean and Scott, Kitty and Kurt, and tonight it would be Remy and Rogue. Remy was happy about it. Rogue grumbled about it and then went upstairs to try to get some sleep.

In the time that they had been there, Kitty had yet to be go to the public beach and meet with 'hot, hunky, bronze beach guys' as she put it, Kurt had made pancakes everyday for breakfast, causing everyone to become very sick of them, and Amara had accidently caught fire to one of the rocking chairs on the front porch. Tabitha had created holes all over the beach in front of the house because she found that it was very fun to throw her explosives out of the upstairs window and into the sand. Remy had been molested and nearly killed by the upstairs shower curtain when he tried to climb out of the shower the day before and it had wrapped around him. Jean had taken to leaving her bedroom door open at night in an attempt to prove that she and Scott weren't doing the 'nasty' (this was how Tabitha put it), and Scott had almost broken the TV.

They had teased him mercilessly for that one. It actually hadn't been his fault, but no one remembered little details like that. Kurt had stumbled into him, knocked against his glasses, and they had slipped sideways, causing a red beam to shoot into the wall, millimeters from the TV screen. This didn't break the TV, but it did create a blackened spot on the wall next to it. Scott had nearly cried.

Other than the rocking chair and the spot on the wall being destroyed, nothing else in the house had been harmed, amazingly enough. They took off their shoes before coming in, they cleaned after themselves, and they watered the flowers in the backyard as requested.

Rogue loved the backyard. Someone had obviously been taking care of it. The grass was thick and dark green, and there were flowers _everywhere_. Yellow and red hibiscus bushes lined the tall, white privacy fence, along with purple hydrangea bushes all throughout. In both of the far corners there were pink rose bushes climbing up the fence. When you stepped off of the patio, there was a trail of stepping stones that led you into the yard and then around a bend of more hibiscus to a big trellis that had honeysuckle clinging to it. Underneath the trellis was a swing just big enough for two people that you couldn't see from the house. The best part was the smell. Just the sweet sent of the honeysuckle was enough to make any of them want to stay on the patio all day and breathe it in, let alone all of the other flowers.

Upstairs, Rogue was currently climbing out of bed. She had wanted to catch some sleep before her shift tonight, but that just wasn't going to happen. She had never been able to sleep with the sun out. Plus, it was hard to sleep when Amara and Tabitha found it be perfectly acceptable behavior to come into the room and start talking while she was under the covers.

So she just gave up. While she pulled her shoes on, Tabitha and Amara's voices went on and on in a never ending drone. Rogue was convinced that if she just sat there and let them keep talking that they would probably just keep talking until they died. That might be a little over stating it. But she had to wonder. The clock that she and Remy had picked up at the grocery store now sat on the table between the two beds and it read that it was three seventeen. So Rogue crossed her legs and looked to the two girls, nodding and pretending that she was listening. Every now and then she would glance at the clock to see how much time had passed.

"I want to go to the beach already," Amara was saying. "Lets go today! Where did Jean and Scott go?"

"To see the fisherman," Tabitha answered. "They're discussing putting out more traps-"

"That's boring; I don't want to talk about that."

"But don't you think he's kind hot?" Tabitha grinned.

"EW!" Amara wrinkled her nose. "Tabby, that's gross! He's like thirty years older than us!"

"So? Doesn't mean he's not hot. He's got nice arms…"

"Ok, enough of that," Amara said flatly. "Let's get Kitty and Rogue and lets go to the beach before Scott gets back and says we have more work to do. Oh! And first we have to go get new swimsuits. I don't like that orange color on me; it makes my head look big."

Rogue glanced at the clock to see that five minutes had already passed. Five minutes had passed and she hadn't said anything once, yet Tabitha and Amara were still there talking as if she had.

"Everything makes your head look big," Tabitha said, "that's what you always say anyway."

"I have a large head; I'm very self conscious about it."

Kitty walked in at that moment, narrowly avoiding smacking Amara in the head with the door. Rogue sighed. Now they really WERE going to talk until they died.

"What's going on?" Kitty asked.

Before the other two could say anything Rogue answered dully, "Amara has a big head and Tabitha thinks the hairy fisherman is hot stuff."

"Ew, the fisherman?" Kitty squealed. "Well…maybe if he didn't have that big beard and he wasn't a murderer."

"No way," Tabitha argued, "I like beards, I think they're sexy."

Rogue silently agreed. There was something that she liked about a man with a hairy face. Maybe because it accentuated that they were a man or maybe it was because it was different. Whatever the reason, she had always liked it. That was actually one of the reasons that she had been attracted to Remy when he had first joined the X-men. Remy didn't have much hair, just a little on his chin but she still liked it. Not anymore of course.

"Mm, maybe," Kitty shrugged. "Anyway…what are you guys doing? You want to go out?"

"Yes!" Tabitha and Amara both said at the same time. Rogue just shrugged. She had nothing better to do and going to the beach sounded fun, assuming that it was the beach that they were planning to go to.

It was. The girls continued yakking on and on excitedly as they gathered up the beach towels and sun block. Kurt came in to see what they were talking about and said that he would go with them. He teleported downstairs to go ask Remy is he wanted to go, who shrugged, grunted, and scratched his stomach. Kurt came back and told them that Remy was going.

Ten minutes later they were packed up and ready to go and unfortunately Rogue was the first one to grab the car keys.

"Uh…" Kurt looked a little panicked. "I thought I was going to drive?"

Rogue didn't notice his (or anyone else's) look. "I didn't hear that. I want to drive, I never get to…"

"There's a reason for that," Tabitha muttered behind her as they walked down the steps of the front porch.

Last Wednesday they had woken up to find another car in the driveway. Professor X had evidently taken care of their need for another car and had it sent there for them, though they had never seen who had brought it. Right now that car was with Jean and Scott down at the docks. So that left the X-van.

No one wanted Rogue to drive. She was one the worst drivers any of them had ever ridden with. Even Kitty, who had been a terror on the road when she had first gotten her license, wasn't as bad as Rogue was. Kitty still had the tendency to have a lead foot at times, but at least she stayed in the lines. Rogue did not. She also did a large number of other terrifying things that everyone tried to block from their minds the moment that they stepped out of the car.

"You sure bout that, chère?" Remy tried to dissuade her as they made their way around the house and to the driveway. "Remy don't mind drivin'."

"I'm fine," she said obliviously. Rogue thought that she was a fairly good driver. "I like to drive."

This did nothing to soothe any of their fears. They all felt panicked and frightened, Amara even whimpered sadly, and Kurt could have sworn that he died a little inside at her words. They all fought for the backseat. Rogue happily climbed into the driver's seat and then turned to look at them curiously.

"What are you guys doing?" She asked as they all purposely avoided the passenger's seat.

"We're gettin' in the car," Remy said cheerily as he waited for the girls to move from in front of him so that he could get in. They all went back to the farthest seat and he mentally cursed them.

"You know what?" Kurt laughed nervously. "I just remembered…I, um…um…um…um…Oh yeah, I need to go tell Jean and Scott something so I'm just going to pop over there and I'll find you, okay?"

"What?" Rogue started to ask what he was going to tell Jean and Scott but before she could say anything he smiled toothily at her and teleported. "Fine then," she rolled her eyes, wondering why everyone was acting so strange all of a sudden. Glancing into the rearview mirror, she saw the three girls on the back row and Remy all alone on the front, all of them buckling their seatbelts and tightening them as far as they would go. Yes, very strange behavior. But there was nothing she could do about it. She started the car.

Everyone cringed and clung to their seatbelts tighter. Remy gripped his so hard that it dug into his hips and caused his knuckles to turn white. But he didn't want to die today and he wouldn't!

Rogue started down the driveway slowly, driving at a safe speed but none of them were naïve enough to think that she would keep this up. The driveway went on and on and the further they went down, the faster they went. It still wasn't a very fast speed. And then Rogue realized that the radio wasn't on. She took her eyes off of the road for two seconds to push the button…and started driving off of the road.

"Look out!" Remy yelled and gripped his seatbelt as tight as he could—

But Rogue jerked the wheel back onto the road at the last second, narrowly avoiding an oak tree. "Whoops," she said as though this were no big deal. "Sorry about that. Everyone ok?"

Everyone was too scared to talk. Rogue just shrugged and continued driving…until out of nowhere she jerked the wheel, causing the tires to squeal and the van to lurch to the left. Everyone screamed, Amara closed her eyes and wouldn't open them, Tabitha nearly started hyperventilating, Kitty's heart nearly burst out of her chest and Remy kept telling himself that he wasn't going to die! He wasn't! Then Rogue jerked the car back on the right course and slowed down as she sighed in relief.

"Sorry," she said again. "There was a squirrel in the road."

Kitty was torn between crying in relief, yelling at Rogue for nearly killing them over a squirrel, and thanking Rogue for sparing the squirrel his life. It was a tough decision. "Oh, well, thanks for not killing it…" she said in a small voice.

"You're the only reason I tried so hard to avoid it," Rogue told her. "I knew you would have killed me if I had accidently hit it."

Everyone slowly turned accusing eyes on Kitty who shrugged weakly.

They were able to drive down the rest of the driveway without any incident, and amazingly, down the empty road on the way back to the town. It was when they finally reached the town and Rogue saw a billboard that they nearly crashed.

"Oh look!" She completely turned her head and took a hand off of the steering wheel to point. "There's that picture thing with the monkey I was talking about! Why are you guys screaming?" She saw, too late that she had drifted to the right, run off of the road and onto the sidewalk. She braked and tried to turn back onto the road but not before running into a speed limit sign and creating a long, deep scratch all along the right side of the van.

"I'm not going to die, I'm not going to die," Remy opened his eyes when he felt the car come to a stop. "Oh good, I'm not dead."

"No we're not," Kitty said breathlessly. "Can you believe it?"

"I can't." Tabitha answered her.

Amara was too scared to talk.

"Everyone ok?" Rogue said sheepishly as she pulled onto the road.

No one answered her but she didn't notice. Instead, she drove on to the top of the hill. And then when they started going down, she couldn't get it to stop. Thankfully, there was no one else on this road at the current moment, but that was the last thing on her mind as they barreled down the hill and every time she pressed into the break nothing happened.

"AAAHH!" The girls screamed.

"This is it, I'm going to die!" Remy screamed.

"OH MY GOD!" Rogue screamed. "It won't stop! It won't stop! I can't get it to…oh wait, I'm pressing the gas." She pressed on the brake and the car slowed to a stop. "Sorry," she turned to look back at them. "I forgot which was which…"

Remy was breathing heavily as though he had just run a few miles. His heart sure felt like he had. He just couldn't believe that he was alive!

Kitty was less happy. "I'M DRIVING! Get out of the car, Rogue!"

"OK," Rogue said, "I know why you're so freaked, but it's ok! I've got it all under control!"

"NO!" Everyone in the backseat said in unison.

"Oh good grief," Rogue grumbled as she unbuckled her seatbelt and climbed out of the car. "Big bunch of babies...I forget where the brake is _one time_ and they fly to pieces…"

The rest of the trip was very uneventful. Kitty drove a lot slower than usual, probably because her hands were shaking so much and her stomach was in knots from her near death experience. Never again were they going to let Rogue drive. Never again would she willingly get in the car when Rogue was behind the wheel. She wouldn't let it happen, no matter what.

**To Be Continued...**


	10. The Case of the Diabolical Football

**A/N: I apologize for the wait. It's been a rough couple of weeks and I'm finally starting to feel normal again. Thanks so much for the reviews and have a happy weekend! **

**Remy's Diabolical Plan**

**Chapter Ten: The Case of the Diabolical Football**

**~X~**

Rogue cursed. Maybe she should have bought a different swimsuit. No, maybe she should have looked at the swimsuit before she had bought it instead of grabbing the first one she had seen in her size and then running to pay for it.

It had seemed like the smart thing to do at the time. Kitty, Amara, and Tabitha had grabbed twenty different swimsuits (per girl) and had run off to the dressing room. Rogue downright refused to try on the swimsuit before she bought it. If she did, she would have ended up in that place for over an hour because Kitty would say-"Here, Rogue, try this one! And this one! And this one! And OOO look how retro!" And then to make sure that Rogue tried them all on, Kitty would phase through the wall of the dressing room, grab her clothes, and then run off again until she had tried on every stupid suit. And Rogue hadn't wanted to do that. Again.

So she had simply grabbed a plain red one in her size and paid for it. Afterwards she went into the bathroom (which was thankfully no where near the dressing rooms) and put it on and then put her clothes back on over it. She swore loudly when she saw that it was a two piece, but decided that she was too lazy to bring it back up and exchange it. But at least the red color was pretty.

Now she was down on the beach, standing next to Remy and Kurt and she wished that she had taken time to pick a more modest one piece, not been so lazy and just bring the suit back to exchange it, and hadn't ditched all of the other girls.

So what if she was a little self conscious about her body? She was a modest person after spending most of her life with it covered up. She didn't like how pale her skin was or the size of her breasts and now wondered if that mole on her stomach was as big as she remembered it being. No clothes had come off yet and already she was dreading it. WHY had she wanted to come to the public beach again? Oh, that's right, she hadn't! Kitty had wanted to come here to meet hot, tanned beach guys.

There were a lot of people here, most of them in their swimsuits and no one else seemed as shy about it as she was, even the ones who really should have thought twice about wearing a two piece. But no one was looking at her. She realized this when she glanced around. They were all talking and laughing and sunbathing and lying on beach towels and those guys over there were throwing a football.

Rogue shrugged. It was now or never. Quickly, but nonchalantly, Rogue unbuttoned her pants and slid them down, kicking her shoes off in the process. Kurt and Remy were next to her pulling their shirts off—which made her feel a little better. At least she wasn't the only person taking her clothes off in public. Once her shirt was off she felt a little better. At least no one had barfed and no little children were looking at her and crying.

Remy, however, had to look away quickly. Friends didn't ogle at their friends when they were half naked. And they especially didn't ogle at their friends when their brother was standing right there and looking at him, as if daring him to look at his sister. But Rogue's choice of swimsuit only served to prove his earlier point. She was trying to kill him. Once Kurt looked away, Remy snuck a little glance her way. How couldn't he? That beautiful long hair and all that pale, creamy skin…

This reminded him of something.

"Sun block," he said, wincing when his voice sounded a little strangled. "Don't forget it."

"I have some," Rogue said without looking at either of them. She reached into a bag and pulled it out just as Kurt spoke.

"I don't need any," he said, sounding satisfied, "I'm a natural tanner."

"How are you a tanner? You're blue."

"Not right now," Kurt glared and pointed to his image inducer wrapped securely around his wrist. "However, I do turn _darker_ blue in the sun."

"Well good for you." Rogue griped. "But I don't tan; I _burn_, so I need it."

"Ok," Kurt shrugged. "I'll meet you out there then."

"Do you have your waterproof image inducer?" She asked before he could walk off.

"Yes, _mother_."

Rogue tossed a handful of sand in his direction but he sprinted off, laughing and sticking his tongue out before it could touch him.

Remy honestly didn't need any sun block either. He'd never had sunburn, always tanned instead but he couldn't seem to pry himself away from the sight that was in front of him now. Rogue, barely dressed, and rubbing sun block on her body. He shouldn't look. It was bad, very bad. But he was bad man. And Rogue was a very attractive woman. If he walked away now, later he would ask himself why he had done that and wonder what the hell was wrong with him.

So he watched her (out of the corner of his eye, of course) as she rubbed it over her arms and her chest and down over her flat stomach, going over a mole next to her bellybutton that Remy had never known was there. Then she sat down and rubbed lotion over both of her legs, seemingly not noticing his widening eyes and breath hitching in his throat.

Remy looked away. She was trying to kill him! She was going to kill him! He had to get away before he did anything crazy, or she noticed his...appreciation.

"Where are you going?" She asked as soon as he shot to his feet.

He paused and turned halfway to her, gulping at the sight of her. "I-uh—I'm goin to swim." In the cold water.

"Oh…Well, can you rub some of this on my back for me first?" She held out the lotion towards him.

Rogue really _was_ trying to kill him. But at least he would have a good time while he was dying. With a shrug, he walked around and sat behind her, taking the bottle from her hands and squeezing a generous amount into his hands.

She pulled her hair around to her front to get it out of his way, and with a happy sigh (that he tried to disguise as a cough), Remy started to rub the lotion onto her skin. It was definitely not normal for friends to take their time while rubbing sun block onto a friend's back. But Remy massaged with deliberate slowness, rubbing his fingers over her skin and trailing his thumbs up and down her spine. He really didn't think about how it must have felt—he just kept massaging his fingers in little circles up her back, over her shoulders and then back down again because it was fun making little pictures with the white lotion.

Rogue bit her lip, wondering what the hell Remy was doing to her to make her stomach flutter the way it was right now. But her stomach fluttering could have possibly been the cause of too many pancakes for breakfast in one week, and her tingling skin was probably due to the lotion. There must have been something in that lotion that made every touch feel so good. Yes, this was probably it. She wished Remy would hurry up before she couldn't help herself anymore and leaned back into his touch and she let out the little moan that was threatening to escape. Damn that lotion. And damn those pancakes. They were causing such strange feelings in her.

Remy finally finished. Rogue let go of her lip, feeling relieved. Remy, oblivious, stood and offered a hand. She took it without thinking, but regretted it as soon as she felt herself being jerked up and then swept up off of the ground.

"What the hell are you doing?" She yelled shrilly as Remy picked her up bridal style and started towards the water.

"Takin ya swimming," he grinned.

"And why are you carryin me?" She hissed, trying not to notice the other people on the beach looking their way.

"Because," he waded into the ocean up to his hips and then grinned down at her. "I've always wanted to do this."

"Do wha-" and then she was tossed into the water, and Remy was above the surface, laughing and swimming away. She came up spluttering, furious, and drenched, immediately searching for the one who had caused it all. But Remy was no where to been seen—or so that was what she thought as she tried to dry her eyes.

"Remy!" She said angrily, "I'm going to kill you! Where are you?" Looking to the left, and then to the right, Rogue couldn't spot him anywhere, but she did see Kurt a few yards away and pointing at the water. "What?" She asked, but before he could answer, a hand grabbed her ankle from under the water and jerked her under.

More water had gone up her nose and the shock of being emerged twice without warning had her ears ringing. But when she came back up the second time, ten times madder than before, Remy was already standing in front of her, howling in laughter. She simply glared at him, wiping her hair from her eyes and making sure her suit hadn't slipped off in any vital places.

"Remy," she said slowly but was only met with more laughing. "Remy," she tried again but still to no avail. "Fine," she shrugged and then disappeared under the water only to come up a moment later with a handful of wet sand.

Remy stopped laughing and his eyes widened. "No, wait-" he turned and the sand that had been happily slung smacked him on his right cheek and ear with a loud SPLAT. "Oh, gross," he muttered as little trails of it dribbled down his neck.

Rogue didn't even stop to laugh—for too long, anyway—before she dove under the water and came back up with more, this time hitting Remy on the shoulder with one handful, then when he screamed and turned away, landing a hit between his shoulder blades.

"Ah!" Remy dove under the water, scrubbing furiously at the places that had been hit.

As soon as he came back up again, ready to tackle Rogue and throw her under the water again, a giant handful of sand slapped into his chest, then one hit his arm and then another hit his stomach. How was she throwing so much at once? Remy held a hand up to shield his face from flying sand to see that Rogue had been joined by Kurt and both of them were happily teaming up on him.

That wasn't fair. Remy dived under the water again, swimming to the bottom (which wasn't that far) and searching until he came across a small shell. He swam over to where he could see the two siblings standing (and noted with some satisfaction that they were trying to get away) and after causing the shell to glow red, let it go towards their feet.

He broke through the surface again just in time to see the resulting under water explosion shower Rogue and Kurt and cause them to scream and dive away from him.

This started an all out war.

Remy had snuck up and held Rogue still as a particularly large wave crashed over them, and then Kurt had taken that opportunity to jump on his back and scrub a fistful of mud into his hair. After Remy had finally been able to sneak up on him by swimming under the water, he had dealt the mother of all wedgies to Kurt, causing him to scream and many other people to look their way.

The girls finally arrived after a half hour of this. Amara wouldn't come past her ankles into the water, but Tabitha joined in their fight, alternating between team Rogue and Nightcrawler and Team Gambit. Kitty came into the water and warned them that she didn't want to wet her hair. This ended with Kitty drenched of course and swearing loudly at them as she swam back to shore. Feeling tired, Rogue followed after her, catching up to try and tell her that Remy and Kurt had coerced her into wetting her hair. Which they hadn't. _Rogue _had coerced the two of them into it. But Kitty didn't need to know that.

"Yeah, I'm sure," Kitty sounded unconvinced as she plopped down on their beach towels and started wringing out her hair.

"It's true, I swear," Rogue said innocently and sat next to her. "You know how Remy and Kurt are. They're masters of persuasion."

Kitty continued to wring her hair and stare off into the horizon in thought. "Have you noticed that Kurt seems a bit…different lately?" She asked.

"Different how?" Rogue pulled a water bottle that one of the girls had brought from a bag and drank thirstily.

"I don't know." Kitty bit her lip. "He's just…you know…I…well, you know."

"Why yes, I have noticed that!"

"Don't get sarcastic. I don't know how to explain it. But he's different like, he's a guy now or something."

"Um," Rogue lifted an eyebrow. "I'm pretty sure he's always been a guy. Unless there's something he's never told us…"

"I like you better when you're not being sarcastic."

"And I like you better when your hair is dry but we can't have everything we want, can we?"

Rogue grinned as Kitty threw a towel into her face. Amara walked over to join them and sit on the sand across from them as Rogue pulled it off of her head.

"Amara, why won't you go in the water?" Kitty asked.

"Water's not really my thing," she replied. "Plus, have you ever thought about how many people have peed in the ocean?" The other girls wrinkled their noses but she continued. "And not to mention the sea creatures that always do their business in there. They also eat their food in there, which is already gross but then sometimes that gets blood and guts in the water. And have you ever cracked open a history book? Any long trip across any ocean when someone dies always ends up with dead bodies being thrown overboard. So essentially, the ocean is just a bunch of piss, crap, blood, and rotted human flesh along with various other things that I'd rather not think about." She shrugged. "Maybe I think about it too much but you're not getting me in that water."

Kitty and Rogue just stared. Neither girl had really wanted to hear any of that, especially after swimming in it. They both suddenly felt very gross and wished that they had decided to stay home that day like good children.

"Amara…" Kitty said slowly, "you were right. You_ do_ think about it too much."

"I'm gonna be sick," Rogue held a hand to her stomach.

"What?" Amara had no idea why they were both looking green.

"You-" Rogue started but then cut off when a football landed on the ground next to her. She looked over and just blinked in confusion before Kitty gasped.

"Oh my God," she squealed quietly. "That totally hot guy just threw his football over here! I bet he did it on purpose. I bet he wants to come over here and get it back."

"Why don't you look and see?" Rogue asked and was turning to see if anyone was coming over but Kitty grabbed her by both upper arms and jerked her back around.

"No!" she hissed. "Don't look! If you do he'll know we're talking about him!"

"So what?" Rogue attempted to pry her arms from Kitty's grasp but the girl was stronger than she looked. "Let go of me you robot!"

"I will if you don't look."

"Fine!"

"He is heading over here," Amara told them happily.

"You _looked_?" Kitty asked, horrified.

"Of course I did. He's cute too. He's got red hair. Or is that strawberry blond? Either way it's pretty."

"Stop looking!" Kitty told her.

Rogue stared distastefully at the football. This boy probably had thrown it on purpose but that wasn't what bothered her. What bothered her was her ever present hate of football. Why did they have to be throwing a stupid football of all things? What ever happened to the good ol' Frisbee? Would he miss it if Rogue picked it up and threw it into the ocean? Maybe a shark would come up and tear it to pieces. That would be enjoyable to watch. She hated football that much.

"Oh, hi there," the boy came up to them and bent next to Rogue to pick up his ball and smiled at them. He wasn't much to look at (he certainly didn't fit Kitty's description of 'totally like buff beach bod') but he wasn't unpleasant to look at either. His hair was strawberry blond and his eyes blue and he had a very round, boyish face. His body was lean and a little on the skinny side but was fit and he had a few muscles to show off. Rogue suspected that he was probably a year younger than her or right at her age. "I'm sorry," he told them, "I overthrew my ball."

"That's ok," Kitty gushed and Rogue grimaced at her tone. "I'm sure it's hard not to overthrow when you've got such strong looking arms."

Rogue rolled her eyes. She had thought that she was getting sick before with Amara's speech, but this was much worse. And if that wasn't bad enough, then the boy said-

"Oh they're nothing, really. Would you like to feel for yourself though?"

"Yeah, like, totally!" Kitty stood and walked around to him, eagerly reaching a hand out and gripping his bicep. "Ooo, that's a lot stronger than it looks."

Probably because he was flexing it as hard as he could, but no one mentioned this. Rogue looked away. The scene unfolding in front of her was too painful too watch, it physically hurt her eyes to see it. Amara was just discreetly giggling behind her hand.

"Would you girls like to feel?" The boy asked politely.

Rogue couldn't help herself. She scoffed rudely and Amara just giggled harder.

"No thanks," Rogue told him. "I think I'll pass."

"Are you sure?" He asked. "This is a perfect opportunity for me to act big headed and display what little muscles I have."

She didn't laugh, only gave him a very forced looking smile because that had been exactly what she was thinking. "That's ok; I don't feel up strange guys."

"Oh, well in that case, my name is Adam. Want to feel me up now?"

Rogue just stared at him. He obviously thought he was cute whereas she was starting to realize that he kind of looked like Pippi Longstocking's pervert twin brother. That is, if Pippi Longstocking had had a pervert twin brother. Perhaps she should tell him this. Maybe she should ask if he knew Pippi. Maybe she should stop thinking about girls with pigtails and freckles and come back to the present.

And maybe it was completely unfair but he was on of those people—she was experiencing one of those moments. He hadn't really said much and he hadn't done anything to her. But Rogue automatically disliked him. His demeanor wasn't imposing or intimidating, he was acting perfectly nice (albeit annoying as he could get) but there was something about this boy that told her not to trust him. _Something_ in her gut made her feel uneasy.

It was probably nothing though. It was _probably_ because he was so annoying.

"No thank you," She said a little more firmly. Maybe that would get the message through.

"Oh come on Rogue," Kitty said as she gave his arm another squeeze. "It won't kill you."

"I'll kill you," Rogue muttered.

"What's that?" Kitty asked.

"Nothin!" Rogue stood and dusted sand off of her thighs. "I'm going back to swim in the piss and human flesh. See ya."

She didn't look back as she walked away, but she could hear Amara behind her giggling loudly and Kitty sounding embarrassed and saying, "She's kind of weird…"

After spotting where Remy was currently swimming, she started to go back in just as Kurt was coming out. But he stopped before he was totally out of the water and after looking up at the beach, turned to her.

"Who's that?" he asked.

"Some guy whose not funny and not cute and can't take no for an answer." She replied brightly.

"Oh…" he trailed off and his eyebrows came together. "He's talking to Kitty."

"Yeah, she's being very _Kitty _rightnow if ya' know what I mean. I had to leave." She made a retching sound. "Are you getting out?"

Kurt stared up at the shore for another moment before shaking his head. "Nope. Let's go attack Remy and Tabby."

"You ok?" She asked, worried about his demeanor. He didn't seem as happy as he had been earlier…

"I'm fine," he shrugged and then leaned down to splash her with water. "Come on," he grinned, "Let's go attack Remy."

His manner and voice were playful but as Rogue followed him she couldn't help but notice that he was no where near as animated as he had been earlier…

**To Be Continued...**


	11. One Diabolically Boring Mission

**A/N: Thanks so much for the reviews! :)**

**Remy's Diabolical Plan**

**Chapter Eleven: One Diabolically Boring Mission**

**~X~**

After swimming (and attacking each other) in the water all day, Rogue and Remy didn't have a lot of time to spare from the time that they finally got out to when they were supposed to be down at the docks for their nightly shift. They had just enough time to go home, shower, put on fresh clothes and then get back in the car and drive down to the docks, stopping to get fast food on the way.

It was just reaching the point of full darkness as they drove along towards the docks, stuffing their faces with hamburgers and fries the whole way. They arrived just as the fisherman was climbing in his truck to leave and Scott was standing next to the rental car with Jean and looking at them disapprovingly.

"Don't look so glum, now," Remy told him as he climbed out of the car. "We're here, everythin's good. Go home and sleep innocently in the same room together…"

Scott opened his mouth to probably insist that they weren't doing anything but stopped when Jean placed a hand on his arm.

"Let's go," she said calmly. "I'm hungry. Feed me."

Scott nodded and opened the door for her just as Remy spoke up.

"Oh yeah," he grinned and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, "feed her Scott, she's _hungry_."

Scott had no retort other than a glare but he did close the passenger door a bit harder than was necessary.

Rogue had already walked down the small hill to the beach next to the docks and was calling to him. "Cajun, where the hell are you? Get your ass over here!"

"She's so lovely," Remy smiled and then turned to follow after her voice. "Coming!" He called and then laughed. "Heh heh, I said a dirty word."

Behind him, Scott, rolling his eyes, climbed into the car and 'accidently' turned the bright lights on and hit the car horn at the same time. Remy jumped at the loud noise and was suddenly blinded but continued to grin stupidly (with his eyes closed) and wave them off anyway.

As soon as Scott had driven off, Remy was thrown back into darkness and blinked at the white spots in front of his eyes. It took him a moment, but eventually he was able to see again. The full moon hanging overhead cast some light along the beach and the distant lights from buildings down the road twinkled. There was a bench when you walked down the stairs, down the hill, and onto the sand, sitting and facing the ocean. This was where he found Rogue sitting and waiting for him.

"What took you so long?" She asked and scooted over to allow him room to sit.

He sighed in contentment and sat down, stretching his legs out in front of him and placing both arms along the back of the bench. "I had to mess with Scott."

"Dirty."

"I know."

Rogue shook her head and looked away from him. Her gaze swept over the beach and to the dock. There was a dock lantern at the end of it, casting out an orange glow across the water. From where they sat they could a few of the buoys floating out (wide apart) in the water. They couldn't see all of them but that wasn't the point. The point was to see if anyone rode up to sabotage them.

"You think we'll have to do this all summer?" She asked dully.

Remy shrugged. "Hopefully. I thought you wanted to stay at the beach?"

"Oh I do," she reassured him, "But this right here…this whole mission is boring. All we're doing is starin at an orange buoy all night long."

"It's better than listenin to your brother snorin all night long," he shuddered. "He snores loud. And he drools, too."

Rogue laughed softly at that image and then gazed up at the moon. If you thought about it, there wasn't really anything spectacular about it...except that it affected the oceans tides, the earth's solar orbit and rotational speeds, and we would be doomed without it. But other than all that important stuff it was just big, white rock with a lot of damage. Yet there was something eerily romantic about it. Not that anything about this night was romantic. No, no, not at all. Sitting on the beach while listening to the sounds of the ocean and looking up at the full moon with Remy was not romantic in the least. Why the word _romantic_ had even popped into her head was questionable. It was probably because she was tired from swimming all day and hadn't had much to eat.

Yes, that was it.

It made no sense, but as those thoughts went through her mind, so did a certain event that had happened earlier that day. No matter how hard she tried, Rogue couldn't banish the thought of the feel of Remy's hands on her back as he rubbed sun block on her skin. Did he mean for that to feel so good? Did it _really_ feel good, or was it something in the lotion like she had initially thought? Probably the latter. Remy didn't think of her that way…of that she was sure.

Remy didn't take his eyes off of the white orb above them as he spoke. "Did ya know that there used to be volcanoes on the moon?"

"What?" Rogue turned to look at him skeptically. "Why do you say that?"

"That's just what they say."

"Who is they?"

"Scientists I guess." He shrugged again. "I watched a special about the moon on TV."

"Uh-huh." She nodded and turned back to look at the sky, only half listening.

"Do ya know how it affects the tides?"

"Hm?"

"It has gravity, and when it makes its orbit around the earth, that gravity is tryin to pull the earth, but all it's able to pull towards it is the ocean's water. That's called high tide." He said proudly.

"Cool."

"I know. I thought so."

"How did you manage to sit still for an hour and watch that?"

"I can sit still," he motioned to his lap. "Look at me now."

She glanced at him with a slight smirk before turning away again. "Yes, there you are."

"I tried to watch the next special," Remy continued, "but it was about Uranus and that was just too gross for me."

Rogue turned back with a quirked eyebrow. "Are you being serious or was that a lame joke?"

Remy grinned.

"Oh good grief," she muttered and scanned the water to check on the buoys. They were are still floating there safe and sound so she turned back to stare at the light in the sky. "I'm bored, Remy. Think of somethin to do."

If she didn't trust him to be so buddy buddy with her he would have made a great suggestion of what they should do. That was _always_ fun. But Rogue was his friend and he had to be more respectful to her. Respectful meaning that he should just come up with more lies to make her his.

"You haven't helped Remy much with his problem," he said. "Jessica…" He tried to put as much feeling into saying that name as he could. Rogue turned to regard him with a strange look. Maybe he had overdone it. Or maybe she was already growing wild with desire and lust for him.

"What did you want me to do, exactly?" She asked unsurely.

"We already been over this." He said, causing Rogue to clench her jaw. "Help this Cajun to become a better man." He paused before he turned fully towards her on the bench. "OK, so here's my main problem…we've become friends, good friends—"

"Wait," she interrupted, "I thought you said you met her before we left Bayville."

"I did," he nodded, cursing himself for forgetting that little detail. "I met her two weeks before we went on the mission. That's the same, right?"

Rogue's palm found her face. "Sure, whatever," she said in muffled voice. "Go on."

"Yeah, so we're friends. I know she likes me. But only in a friendly way. She doesn't know that I feel about her the way that I do. And so I don't know how to let her know that I love her and to make her see me as more than a friend." He sighed. "And even if she don't love me back," he said drearily, "I don't wanna lose her."

"Remy," she started slowly, "I'm not tryin to undermine your feelings or anything, but ain't that kind of fast? You've known her for two weeks and you're in love with her and she's your best friend?"

"Don't you worry chère," he patted the top of her head. "I love her but you're my best friend, no one can take your place."

"You didn't address the other things," she said, trying to sound disapproving but couldn't help but smile.

His hand fell back to the back of the bench and he tried to look oblivious. "What other things?"

"How you're goin too fast."

"Love is strange thing," he said quietly and stared past her to the ocean water. "It sneaks up on you. You don't get to decide who you fall for, it just happens. And when it does…it can build you up and tear your down at the same time. It makes you happy and it makes you sad. It gives you a reason to live and it gives you a reason to hurt. I didn't believe that until…her."

"Since when did you become so poetic?" She asked sarcastically, for some reason uncomfortable when Remy talked about his secret love.

"Oh, that wasn't poetic, chére." he grinned. "If Remy wanted to be poetic it would be somethin like-"

"Don't do it." She warned but Remy had already grabbed her hand and adorned a wistful and serious (which turned out just being goofy) look on his face.

"Rogue, oh Rogue," he recited and she glared and tugged on her hand in his grip. "How your locks shine white like the moon," he flicked some of her white bangs and she swatted at the offending hand. "How your glare makes me think of a wild cannibal swingin an ax at my head." She glared harder at him and tried not to laugh. "How your grip on my hand at this current moment reminds me of the way a garbage truck smashes the trash together. Ouch."

"Remy, stop goofin around!"

"And your eyes!" The goofy look on his face increased as he leaned forward and her chest was starting to hurt with the effort she was making not to laugh. "Your eyes are like two green toads floatin on two green lily pads on some green, murky water."

"You're terrible at this."

"Remy ain't ever written poetry before."

"I wouldn't start," She told him seriously and finally managed to twist her hand out of his. "You're invadin my personal bubble; go over there."

Grinning, Remy slid back away from her and put his arms on the back of the bench again. "But let's be serious again…"

"When were we serious?" She asked incredulously.

"This thing with Jessica really is a problem." He ignored her and continued talking. "You know me, and you're a girl—woman!" He said quickly when she shot him a look. "And you should know how another woman might react to this."

"How would I know that?"

"Because all women think the same," he said dubiously.

"No they don't." she told him. "Every _person _thinks differently. Everyone processes and reasons things differently. Some people can be similar in their way of thinkin, and if they are then they're usually the ones that end up being married for fifty years. But NO, women don't all think the same way on the same things."

Remy gaped at her. "Then I'm doomed!"

"No you're not," she reassured him.

"Then what do I do?"

"Before you're friends for too long, give her a clear cut sign that you want to date her."

"Wait," he held up a hand. "What do you mean by friends for too long? How long is too long?"

Rogue thought for a moment. "Well I guess too long would be…Over three months. That's too long. If you wait that long, then you'll fall into the friend zone and it will be harder for her to see you as anything else."

Somewhere, someone was laughing at his misfortune. If this was the way that Rogue thought about him in love with some made up woman, then this would most certainly be the way she thought about him being in love with her. She would think that he had waited too long and now she only saw him as a friend and nothing more. He had joined the X-men seven months ago and he and Rogue had been friends ever since. If three months was too long in her opinion, then seven months was probably even worse.

But could he change her mind? Possibly. He wasn't going to give up on that idea because she was partly wrong in her assessment. He had been friends with her for five months before he had fallen in love. Before that he saw her as Rogue, his friend and fellow team mate with pretty hair, nice rear end, and someone who could make him laugh until he cried. And then, after that light from the sky shone down on her that day on the lawn, she wasn't just Rogue anymore. She was _Rogue_.

And that was all the description that needed.

"Ok," he said weakly. "So what kind of sign do I need to send her?"

"Send her roses or better yet, ask her on a date."

"I can't do that." He said quickly, imagining the look on Rogue's face if he sent her flowers. She would think he was insane and then his whole plan would be caput. He couldn't tell her how he felt until he was sure that she felt the same way towards him.

Rogue sighed in exasperation. "Then I don't know what else to tell you!"

"I don't really know how to talk to her."

"But you just said she was your friend!"

"I did," Remy thought quickly, "but I don't know how to…date her."

"Just be yourself."

"Really?" He grinned.

She sat for a moment, thinking over her words. "Well maybe not too much. Like for instance, don't steal anything when you take her out. Don't tell her you were a thief and don't pull out your cards and start shuffling them. I know you do that when you're nervous."

"What's wrong with it?"

"It's not normal. She's human, right?"

"I think. But shuffling my cards is just part of my charm," he showed off his dimple as he pulled out a deck of cards from his pocket. "See?" He took one card out and flipped it over the backs of fingers and back in the deck. "If I can do something impressive with these cards with these fingers, imagine what my fingers could with…other things."

Rogue flushed. She awkwardly cleared her throat and determinedly kept her gaze from his hands. He had already made her think about that damn sun block massage with them and now he was causing her imagination to work in over drive. Thinking about all the wonderful things her friend's hands could do was NOT a subject she wanted to be spending too much time thinking about. She already couldn't forget the way her skin had tingled earlier and this was just making it worse. But this was probably all due to…to…something…dammit she couldn't think of anything!

"Well, that's uh—uh—um," she stuttered and then cleared her throat again. "That's great. Do whatever you want. If it's worked before then it might in this case."

"Yeah, maybe so…" He smirked at her flushed face and just for kicks continued to shuffle the cards in his hands.

But she stubbornly looked away from him, once again sweeping her eyes over to check on the buoys and then back out across the beach. They fell silent for a good fifteen minutes after that, just listening to the ocean and thinking their own thoughts.

'Stupid hands!' Rogue was mentally cursing at herself. _'Those damn hands! Stop thinkin about them! Think about somethin else. Think about Kurt. Think about Kurt eating pancakes. Think about Kurt eating pancakes with Remy across from him shuffling cards—no! AH! Kurt, Kurt! Think about Kurt! He's your brother and you don't find him sexy at all. Not that you find Remy's hands sexy, you pervert. Kurt eating pancakes…What is it with him eating pancakes all of the sudden? Where did this obsession come from? What kind of syrup does he like best? Why pancakes and not waffles? Is there really a difference?_'

Remy clicked his tongue as he continued to shuffle the cards in his lap. He glanced sideways over at Rogue and wondered why she had such a strained look on her face. His thought process was something more like…'_Sex, sex, sex, Rogue, sex, sex, sex, Rogue, sex, sex, sex, cards, Rogue, sex, sex EXPLOSIONS!_'

Or something like that.

"Rogue?" he broke the silence and reached over to tap her on the nose with the two of hearts. "You wanna take Remy clothes shoppin' tomorrow?"

"Why would I do that and are you gonna pay?" She asked as she leaned away from the card at her nose.

"Of course," he pulled back and slipped the card back into the deck. "And I want you to pick out some clothes for me that women would like."

"There's nothin wrong with your clothes, you just wear that same shirt all the time."

"I like this shirt." He said defensively.

"Yes, you've said that. But look!" She leaned over and pointed to a little bleach spot on the blue material on his shoulder. "You've got a bleach stain, and I know there's a hole in this armpit-" she poked his arm, "and you've pulled this string here," there was a loose string on the side over his ribs, "and the seam is coming undone!"

"I've had this shirt for six years," he started to argue. "It's perfectly fine."

Rogue stared at him. "Ok, did you hear the first part of that statement? You've had it for six years. You got it when you were fifteen. That's absurd. You need a new shirt. Actually, you need more than one new shirt because that's the only one you ever wear."

"Fine," he grumbled. "But I'm ain't throwin it out!"

"And why the hell not?!"

"It holds sentimental value." He said stubbornly.

"Does it really? Or are you just a hoarder?"

"I ain't!" After stuffing the cards back in his pocket, Remy crossed his arms over his chest. "If anyone's a _hoarder_ it's you."

Rogue narrowed her eyes at him when she saw he was trying not to laugh.

"Is this another Uranus like joke?"

Remy bit his lip to keep from grinning.

"That joke sucks. Pick a new one."

"Alright," Remy grinned and looked over at her. "Your momma's so fat, she walked past the TV and I missed the whole first season of Lost."

"Still not good enough."

"Hm," he thought for a moment. "Ok—roses are red, violets are blue, God made me pretty, what the hell happened to you?"

"You're sayin things fifth graders say at recess. I've heard that one a million times."

"But you're so pretty!"

"Hush."

"Nice blush."

"They weren't sayin it to me when I heard it," Rogue explained. "And even if they had said to me, their faces would have been smashed into the ground and then they wouldn't be pretty at all. Anyway, go on."

"Ok, but just remember you made me do this." He told her seriously. "I'm goin to have to pull out my personal favorites now."

"Ok."

"Prepare yourself."

"Ok."

"It's coming."

"Ok."

"Stop saying ok."

"Ok."

"Here we go." He waited for a second to give the appropriate amount of time for a 'dramatic pause' before continuing. "You're so dumb, you got hit by a parked car. Your village called, they're missing an idiot. Yo momma's so fat, she got arrested at the airport for ten carrying ten pounds of crack. Your wheel is turning, but the hamster is definitely dead. And the best one—" He stopped and listened to her giggling. "Can I borrow your face for a few days while my ass is on vacation?"

"That was better!" She laughed. "Where did you learn all that?"

He shrugged. "Middle school."

She stopped laughing. "Are you serious?"

"Of course," he answered truthfully.

"Oh wow."

"What?"

"Nothin."

As the quiet washed over them again, they both turned and grinned at one another and then away again. They sat in amicable silence, occasionally looking over to check on the buoys, only to find them perfectly safe each time. The quiet was constantly punctuated by the sound of the ocean's waves hitting the beach and as the night wore on, the moon above them shifted in the sky.

After nearly falling asleep for the third time, Remy, shaking his head to wake himself up, pulled out his cell phone to check on the time. It was just now nearing midnight. They still had six hours to go. Rogue seemed perfectly fine and not at all sleepy as she read a book that she had seemingly pulled out of no where, aided by the light of her own cell phone. Remy glared at her profile. How was she so awake? Well, probably because she had woken up at noon that day whereas he had gotten up at eight. He had known that he shouldn't get up so early when he had a shift that night. But Remy didn't like sleeping late. He liked the morning time and he enjoyed getting up early. He also liked staying up late. Remy could go to bed at three in the morning and then get up at six and be fine. Rogue, however, needed at least nine hours of sleep at night or she was a grouch all day.

He glanced over at her again. What was she reading? And why hadn't he thought to bring _Diabolical Seduction _with him? Alejandro and Rosita never got boring. They were the perfect lust match. Remy idly wondered what happened after the book was over. It had said—_And they lived sexily ever after_—but what did that mean, really? No one could be sexy their whole life. Did Alejandro love Rosita just as much when she was old and had white hair? Did he still love her after she had four kids and had put on a few pounds? Did Rosita still love Alejandro even when he had he started having smoking problems and couldn't hold down a good job and never wanted to help out around the house?

Then he thought about it in terms of himself and the woman next to him. Rogue had some white hair now so that wouldn't be a problem with him when it was all white. If she had kids and put on weight, then there was just be more to love. And if it came down to it, just so she wouldn't feel left out, maybe he would give in and do the thing he had been restricting himself from for a long time. Eating as many milkshakes as he could. That future seemed bright. Rogue with white hair, slightly overweight and with four little boys (miniature Remys) dressed in mini brown leather coats and hanging all over her. And Remy with a big gut and stuffing his face with ice cream.

The image in his head was almost real. He could actually hear the kids in his head, screaming, "Daddy, Daddy! Give me some chocolate!" And Rogue looking very exasperated and saying, "Why did you put these coats on them? And why are you so fat? And why did I have all boys? I want girls too!" And then he could feel himself patting his stomach and then feel something moving in there…

"What the hell?" He asked Rogue, who just looked annoyed.

"That better be a girl!" She pointed to his stomach. "Stop giving me boys, Remy! I love them—kind of anyway—but I need a girl!"

Remy was more horrified than he ever had been before. He was _pregnant_? How did this happen? One moment he had been sitting on a bench and listening to the ocean and now his life was down the drain and he apparently had the reproductive organs of a woman!

"Remy?"

What did everyone say when they found out that he could have babies? This was embarrassing. And wait a minute…HOW WAS HE GOING TO GET IT OUT?

"Remy!"

The world was shaking, something was touching his shoulder—oh, that was just the giant, man eating armadillo coming at him.

"Remy, you're freakin me out!"

This was freaking him out too. He didn't want to be pregnant and he didn't want to get eaten by an armadillo. But he couldn't move. His legs seemed to be glued to the ground and were suddenly VERY tired.

"Remy, for the love of-" something slapped him in the face and when he blinked in surprise, he was laying on the bench on the beach, his head in Rogue's lap as he looked up at her startled face.

"Are you OK?" She sounded very worried.

Remy sat up quickly and ran his hands frantically over his stomach. To make doubly sure he wasn't impregnated he pulled it up by the hem and looked it over. Nothing. He wasn't pregnant. And glancing back at Rogue he saw that she was still her normal size and didn't have a full head of white hair, just the normal amount, and there wasn't one kid in sight.

"I fell asleep." He said dully, turning back around to check his stomach again.

"Yeah," Rogue still sounded scared. "You were asleep for an hour and then you started screamin somethin about pregnant milkshakes and chocolate trench coats. And you attacked me when I tried to wake you up!"

Remy turned to stare are her. "I attacked you?"

"Yes," she reached up a hand to rub her jaw. "You hit me."

"What? Rogue—you know I never would have-"

"I know you wouldn't hit me on purpose." She interrupted him. "But when you did you screamed somethin about an armadillo…"

"Oh."

"What the _hell_ were you dreamin about?"

Remy rubbed the back of his neck. This was awkward. He would tell her what he had dreamed if he wasn't so embarrassed by it and he wasn't still shaken up quite a bit. And to top it all off, he was pretty sure that in the dream Rogue had been the one to impregnate him, meaning that she must have had male reproductive organs just like he had female. And he was one hundred percent positive that he did NOT have female organs.

"It was…nothin really." He had to concentrate on keeping his eyebrow from twitching. "Just a giant, pregnant armadillo was comin after me."

She stared. "And how is that all my fault?"

"Hm?"

"You kept saying—"It's your fault Rogue"—" She tried to copy his voice but strangely it came out as a British accent instead. "Actually, you were screamin it and then you reached out and knocked my book over there-" She jerked her thumb over to the left to where the book was lying on the sand. Clicking her tongue in annoyance, she stood and walked over to get it.

As she was coming back, Remy shook his head. "I'm sorry. That was the scariest dream."

Sighing and rubbing her jaw, she glanced out over to the buoys again and then brought her gaze back to him.

"Is your jaw ok?"

"It's fine." She said simply. "You hit like an old lady."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome."

After plopping back down on the bench, Rogue rubbed her sleepy eyes and tried once again to concentrate on her book. It really was a good read, full of excitement and adventure and a touch of romance. But no matter how good it was, staring at the page for very long was making her sleepy. She snapped it shut and glanced over at Remy to see him sitting with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. He was probably just as bored and sleepy as she was.

How anyone else had managed to sit here all night long and not die of boredom was beyond her. The first two nights they had been here they had all come out together, expecting a fight on the first night. That hadn't been so bad. Except that Kurt had complained the whole time that he was hungry, Amara and Kitty had argued over capes: Fashionable or 'so yesterday' as they put it, and Scott had kept hissing at them to be quiet and all night long he had diligently kept his eyes on the buoys. Remy and Rogue had played several rounds of poker until Rogue found out that he was cheating and had promptly threw sand into his eyes. Then Remy fell screaming onto the beach, Rogue was standing over him and apologizing profusely, and Jean was giggling so loudly at them that she had to cover her mouth with her hands. Scott was about to tell them to be quiet again when he noticed that Tabitha had fallen asleep, Kurt had found a bag of gummy worms in the van and was crinkling the bag loudly as he tried to open it with his teeth, and Amara and Kitty's argument had escalated into a full blown fight.

So they had thought it best to split into teams after that.

Quiet and stealthy they were not—at least not when they were all together in a group—but at least they were entertaining.

Tonight wasn't anything like that night. That night had been loud and fun. Save for the fact that she thought she had blinded her best friend. But both of these nights had one thing in common. The lobster thieves (or the people who let the lobsters out) were nowhere to be seen. No one was on the dock and no one but Remy and Rogue were on the beach. The only other souls here were those darkly dressed people walking down the stairs towards the docks and carrying a small rowboat over their heads. And there was nothing out of the ordinary about that.

Or maybe there was.

Rogue sat straight up and strained to see better. She nudged Remy to get his attention. He turned to look at her and when she pointed he followed her finger to the people. Shh, he mouthed with a finger over his lips.

And that's when the book in her lap clattered onto the bench.

Rogue didn't get the chance to see if any of these people noticed (though she was sure that they probably _did_) before Remy whipped around and drew as close to her as he could.

"Don't be afraid," he whispered. "Remy's gonna have to do something very, very scary now."

His breath tickled her cheek as he leaned in and she stiffened, wondering what he was up to. It just seemed that he was goofing off at the moment. How was _this_ going to help them? How was turning his back on their enemies and invading her personal space going to solve their problem of being seen? And what had Remy meant when he said he was going to do something scary?

She had a pretty good idea. She gulped when she thought of that course of action. And yet she still couldn't see how that would help them at all.

"Remy," She whispered as he drew closer. "What are you-"

"They can't know we were watchin em'." His left hand fished his cards from one pocket while his right slipped past her ponytail to settle on the back of her neck. His eyes never left her own wide pair, staring up at him like he was madman. "We have to let them think we're doing something else…" He murmured before dipping his head down.

Whatever he had said went in one ear and out the other. Rogue was too shocked at his actions, afraid of what he was doing, and of the enemy spotting them, and whatever the hell that funny feeling in the pit of her stomach was. It must have been an affect of the greasy French fries she had eaten for dinner. That had to be it.

Remy leaned down and slowly, hesitantly, brushed his lips over hers. It was barely a contact. You couldn't really classify it as a kiss. But it was enough to have her suddenly very aware of every move he made. Moments before her thoughts had been racing. Why was he doing this? How was this going to help? Where were those people? Were they coming after them? Were they watching them? Why were her toes tingling? But now all thoughts seemed to drop dead in her mind and all she could think was—

_Is that what a kiss is supposed to feel like?_

Remy wasn't dating her. And she was sure that he wasn't really thinking about her pleasure at the moment—was probably thinking about the people at his back—but she couldn't help but realize that that tiny little bit of contact was the best lip action she had ever received. And he had barely even _tried._

And she thought that was all until she felt his top lip nudge against hers before he leant down and pressed both of his lips to her lower lip.

And then _that_ was the best kiss she had ever gotten.

It wasn't too dry, he didn't say anything about football, it wasn't too aggressive, he didn't grope her inappropriately, and he didn't slobber all over her. It was just a simple kiss and he made it seem so easy. And if it were this easy, why hadn't any of those other guys been able to make her feel like…

Her mind couldn't go there. Remy was just doing his duty to the team. He was doing what was necessary in their mission. He probably wasn't enjoying this at all. He was concentrating on the people behind them…whatever they were doing now. And she should also be thinking of them, but try as she might, nothing else came to mind other than the feel of Remy's lips and the thumb at the nape of her neck, lightly stroking the skin there and causing her to shiver.

He tilted his head slightly and moved his mouth slowly against hers, gently trying to coax her into moving with him.

She almost contemplated it. If contemplate meant not being able to understand her own muddled thoughts and just giving in to her body's desire, then she really was about to contemplate it. Nothing said to her—This is your friend. This should be awkward. This will probably ruin your friendship. All she heard was the sound of her own heart beating loudly, the crunch of sand as someone approached them, and the dull crackle of one of Remy's charged cards.

Remy pulled back slowly, nonchalantly, and keeping eye contact with her, licked his lips as though he had just eaten his favorite meal.

This whole night was becoming stranger and stranger.

Remy turned his head to regard whoever had come over to them but still kept both arms around her as though this were normal behavior. "You need somethin'?" He asked.

Rogue blinked back against the haze of whatever had come over her. Now was the time to get back to normal. Standing a few yards away from them was a woman dressed all in black with about ten other women and three men behind her, all staring at them on the bench.

A flush crept up her neck to cover her face as she took them all in. Had they been watching them the whole time? A sinking feeling in her stomach told her _yes_, they had just witnessed their kissing session and just stood there to watch. Had Remy known they were there? Probably. How else had he known when one of them had finally approached?

"We know you're here to watch us," the woman that had come over told them in a fearless voice. "Your whole group has been here all week. And we got a funny feeling that you aren't cops."

"Why is that?" Remy asked politely as he uncharged the card in his hands and pulled his arms from around Rogue to turn to face her.

"You're all too young; you're just a bunch of kids." She said snidely. "Why are you here, anyway? What business is it of yours what we do?"

"What you're doing is a felony," Remy responded matter-of-factly. As if he had any room to talk. His lips quirked slightly at that thought. "The fisherman you're stealin from is a good, honest man and he's just tryin to do his job." The hypocrisy was too much. He coughed loudly to cover up a snicker.

Rogue nudged him in the ribs with an elbow before standing. The woman didn't even flinch, but stood her ground.

"Look lady," Rogue said firmly, "you're gonna stop what you're doin, or I'm gonna make you stop. What'll it be?"

"Oh yeah?" The woman scoffed. "And how exactly do you plan to 'make me stop'?"

Before she could respond, and by respond she meant run over and kick the woman in the mouth, Remy stood at her side with a charged card glowing brightly.

He didn't say anything. He didn't even make a move in their direction. But when all of the men and women saw Remy's card, they lost it. They all started running back up the stairs and screaming, not even caring about the rowboat they had been carrying, instead flinging it down onto the beach.

"They're MUTANTS!" One man screamed as though this were the most terrible thing he could think of.

The woman that had approached them had seemed the bravest up until this point. Now she was screaming like a little girl and fighting to break through the crowd to get in front of everyone. Several of them fell over each other as they struggled to get away, shooting terrified glances over their shoulders at Remy as Rogue who still stood in the same spot side by side, staring curiously at them as they ran off.

Finally they were gone and the distant sound of their screaming had almost faded.

"Wow." Rogue said. "I'm...kind of insulted."

Remy looked down at his card and titled his head. "What did I _do_?" He didn't get an answer so with a shrug, he uncharged it once more and tucked it back into his pocket.

"Should we…go after them?" Rogue asked unsurely.

"I doubt they'll be comin' back with us mutants here," Remy responded confidently. "Apparently we scare them."

"Apparently…" Rogue turned to him suddenly. "You chased them off on purpose, didn't you?"

"Whatever do you mean?" He asked innocently.

"We could have called the others and caught them all. But you didn't want to do that because you want to stay at the beach longer so you're tryin to drag this mission out!" She accused.

"You already knew that. We've discussed this. What's so wrong with that?"

Slowly, she grinned. "Nothin. I think it's a great idea."

Remy grinned in response and silently, they sat back down on the bench together, listening to the soft sounds of the ocean and gazing up at the bright moon.

**To Be Continued...**


	12. Creepy Diabolical Clowns

**A/N: ********I'm happy that you all liked the kiss scene, it was a lot of fun to write. **Thanks so much for the reviews! :)

**Remy's Diabolical Plan**

**Chapter Twelve: Creepy, Diabolical Clowns**

**~X~**

Rogue was falling, and she was falling hard. Into the floor that is.

Her shoestring was untied, (something she had noticed milliseconds before she had stepped on it) it pulled on her ankle, and she started to fall down. Now all she could think was: This is going to hurt.

But at least it wasn't pavement or any other harder substance. It was a hardwood floor. In a random clothes shop in the middle of town. Where anyone could look over and witness this embarrassing moment.

But thankfully, no one did. This was an odd thought for someone who was falling and going to get hurt no matter what they did to think. But think it she did and she finally hit the ground, elbows first, and the only accompanying sounds were the _thump, thump _that both her elbows made upon contact and the hissing sound that escaped her. She was not going to cry. No matter how bad that had hurt, no matter how much her funny bone was screaming (or laughing), she would NOT cry! She was an X-man! And X-men didn't cry from bumped elbows. Or banged up knees. Or evil, untied shoestrings. X-men didn't cry over trivial things…Except two weeks ago when Kitty cried because she had missed a really good sale at the mall.

Sniffling sadly, Rogue rolled onto her back and sat up slowly. Her knees really had gotten banged up. She was safely hidden behind a rack full of men's kaki pants so it was unlikely that anyone could see her from her position on the floor. Gingerly she pulled back the fabric of her capri jeans and looked them over. Just a few red marks, and there would probably be bruises later. Oh well. She sighed. She deserved it.

If her thoughts hadn't been on something else, this wouldn't have happened.

The problem was, Rogue felt like a pervy old lady. Or a silly school girl. Or a woman who had just received the best kiss of her life from her best friend. And now she couldn't stop thinking about said kiss and his hands. Shuffling cards. Rubbing sun block on her back. Stroking the nape of her neck. Those hands were everywhere in her mind and she couldn't rid it of them.

With some horror, Rogue realized that her crush on Remy had returned full force. But it was just a crush. Surely it would be gone in the next week. Hopefully soon. Hopefully VERY soon. Because last night he had kissed her, they had chased the lobster thieves away, and then sat back down on that bench and hadn't said another word to each other all night long. But that hadn't seemed like such a big deal since they hadn't talked because she had fallen asleep. But now it was the next day and she had slept for a few hours and she had the opportunity to think the whole thing over. Now her mind was clear and she was able to properly hear her thoughts. And they were telling her many different things. Some things she already knew. Some she didn't want to hear.

That it was the best kiss anyone had ever bothered to give her was the first thing. And she wasn't going to deny that. It was a nice kiss, no matter the real meaning behind it. Speaking of which, it had taken her some time (an hour of staring at the ceiling above her bed to be exact) to figure out the reason. Oh she could just go up and ask him why he did it. But of course, that would be awkward. And her face burned just at the thought of doing something that brave so she couldn't imagine how hot her cheeks and neck would get if she actually did it. So she thought about it and came to the most logical conclusion. Remy kissed her because he was trying to not blow their cover. If the lobster thieves had looked over and seen Remy and Rogue staring at them, then their cover would have most certainly been blown. But if they looked over to see a couple kissing on the bench, then they might have just thought it was…a couple kissing on the bench.

But then that begged several other questions. Why didn't it work? Why didn't the thieves buy the act? From their conversation with them, obviously they had known that the X-men had been watching out for the fisherman's traps. How long had they known that? Had _they_ been watching the X-men as they looked out for _them_? When Remy had been kissing her, did his hands tingle? Did he enjoy himself? Why did she care if he enjoyed himself? And most importantly, why was she still sitting on the floor of this very public clothes store?

Rogue stood, dusting her behind off as she straightened. She glanced around quickly but thankfully no one's attention seemed to be on her. Hopefully no one had seen her fall.

Right now, at this point in time, Rogue and Remy were in 'Olivia's Outfits'. At first when they had seen this building they had assumed that it was a woman's clothes shop, but after a lot of "Let's just check anyway!" and "_Non_! Remy's not gonna wear a femme's clothes!" and a whole thirty seconds of Rogue making 'the face', Remy caved and they went inside and found that Olivia had outfits for men women and children.

This was when Rogue had proceeded to 'shop' which for her just consisted of grabbing the first ten things she saw, flinging them at Remy's head, and telling him to go try them on. She had to get him out of her sight. As soon as he had walked into the dressing rooms, Rogue sighed and relaxed visibly. Staring at him after last night was hard, but pretending to be so casual as if nothing had happened between the two of them was even harder.

Remy seemed completely fine. Rogue was about ready to smack him for looking and acting so nonchalant. Who did he think he was, kissing the breath out of unsuspecting women and then acting like it was no big deal? Where exactly did he get off acting so _cool_?

And not only that, but now he was acting…very…suddenly…very…very…very…the man kept shuffling his cards.

And those DAMNED hands of his were looking VERY…like they were shuffling cards. Those damn hands shuffling those damned cards were everywhere! Suddenly he seemed to have a strange liking to constantly moving his cards around in his hands. Normally this was something that he did when he was bored or nervous or to show off or just something that he liked to do every now and then. But not continuously. Never had she witnessed him shuffling and shuffling and shuffling and shuffling until she had to tell him to stop.

But Rogue couldn't let this affect her too much because she was trying valiantly not to let this stupid crush worsen. That couldn't happen. It would not be good. Remy loved another woman. He would most likely not appreciate her affection when she was supposed to be his friend. And she couldn't let him down like that. If it was the LAST THING SHE DID, Rogue would not let something stupid like a crush come between her and Remy's relationship. She really was a good friend that way.

It had been more than a little awkward being with him after their kiss. But she was trying very hard to not feel so nervous around him. After all, he was completely fine. And if he could be so uncaring and normal about the best kiss she had ever had, well then, so could she!

Remy, on the other hand, was sad. He glumly examined himself in the floor length mirror of the dressing room, belatedly realizing that Rogue hadn't actually picked out any of these shirts because she liked them. She must have just grabbed the first things she had seen. This meant that she was bored and probably didn't want to be around him and so was flinging clothes at him so that she could get away from him faster.

He was sure that this was true. Because when Remy was sad about one thing, every other stupid, depressing thing he could think of _must_ be true. Or else, why would he have thought of it?

And the reason that he was sad in the first place was simple.

His kiss with Rogue last night hadn't had the least bit of affect on her.

He couldn't believe how casual she was acting; as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened at all. And even though Remy was one hundred percent sure that they had NEVER kissed before, he was starting to wonder if they had, in fact, shared a kiss at some other point in time to make her act so cool about the whole thing. Perhaps he had been drunk and couldn't remember it? Maybe it was that time that he had bumped his head really hard in that danger room session? What if she regularly snuck into his room while he was sleeping and molested him then?

Remy grinned at this thought.

But the grin quickly disappeared when he saw his reflection and how utterly ridiculous he looked. Rogue had tossed a two sizes too small bright yellow polo shirt with a picture of a very creepy looking clown splayed across the chest at him. And for some reason he had accepted it. And for some reason he had put it on. And for some VERY strange reason, he was now tilting his head to the side and wondering if the clown made his head look bigger or if his head made the clown's head look bigger.

Remy was sure it was the former. That clown sure was creepy. And the color was all wrong for his skin type and it did not compliment his eyes very well. And the fabric! Well-

Remy paused and then slowly, his eyes widened in horror as he realized where his train of thought had taken him. He cast a paranoid look around the small dressing room but of course no one was there to see this odd moment. And thankfully, no one would ever know.

Remy tore the shirt off and flung it to the ground the way you would throw something disgusting and vile. With a sigh of relief, he reached into the pile of shirts that Rogue had tossed at him and pulled out a new one, this time looking it over before he put it on.

His face dropped. This one was worse than the last one. There was a bright picture of every Sesame Street character on here and in bold letters it proudly boasted: I grew up on the streets.

Who the hell _bought_ _this crap_?

With a fear for his own life (because suddenly very real images of man eating shirts were in his head), Remy dropped it and quickly went back to putting his own shirt back on and then running for safety.

Back to Rogue. Back to the woman who (apparently) was kissed so often by her friends that it was no big deal to her and nothing to worry over. Why couldn't she just be a good friend and ravish him every now and then? Jeeze, was that so much to ask for?!

He didn't think so.

Remy could always try to play off his emotions with these little personal jokes but he could never drown out the little voice in the back of his mind telling him that one thing he didn't want to hear. Last night he kissed Rogue. And now she didn't seem to care. Which meant one thing. This was a _rejection_. It might not have been straight out where she had pushed him away and told him no, but just her breezy, nonchalant attitude was enough to let him know that she didn't care about their kiss. It hadn't had any affect on her. It hadn't made her hands shake like his had or her belly do flops or her heart to pump so loudly in her ears that it made her lightheaded.

And if Rogue couldn't enjoy kissing him, how could she ever love him? She couldn't. Remy was sure of it. He just didn't know that Rogue was currently across the store and nearly in panic because she couldn't forget the taste of his kiss.

Though he hated that part of his personality, Remy knew that he was a sensitive person at heart. But he had grown accustomed to hiding his feelings and pretending otherwise. He could do this a while longer. Today he was down about his whole diabolical plan and right now he just wanted to give up. But he couldn't let himself. He _wouldn't_. No matter how loud that treacherous voice in his head was telling him to stop while he was ahead, Remy refused to listen to it. Because now he knew what he had to do.

He had to try harder.

"Roguey?" Remy leaned around a shelf full of neatly folded dress shirts in search of Rogue. Of course she couldn't have been hiding back there since she _was_ taller than four feet so he had never expected to find her there. "Rooooguey?" He continued to search, weaving through the racks and shelves spread throughout the store until he found her standing over by the blue jeans and chewing her lip. "Rogue!" He greeted and for some odd reason she startled and looked at him guiltily.

"Uh, yeah?" She asked and with a faint hint of amusement, he noticed the slight twinge of pink on her cheeks.

"Those shirts ya gave me," he said slowly, "were a bit…craptacular."

"Craptacular?" The corners of her mouth twitched just slightly. "Now you're just takin' my words."

It was true that this was a word that Rogue used often and also that this was where he had first heard it. However…

"Now, now, Roguey, if you can take the word chérie from moi, then Remy can take craptacular."

She stared at him. "Remy, I was talking about a sherry cocktail, as in the _drink_."

Remy just crossed his arms stubbornly. "You can keep sayin' that but it don't mean that I'll believe you."

After throwing her hands in the air in exasperation, Rogue groaned at him and changed the subject. "Why were they craptacular? What was wrong with them?"

Now it was Remy's turn to stare. "You _did_ see them, right?"

"Not really."

Just as he had thought. She had flung the first thing in his direction to get rid of him. Inwardly, Remy frowned. Outwardly, Remy kept a normal expression and said, "Scary clowns and Sesame Street."

"Say what?"

"You heard me."

"Ok then." Sighing, she turned to the blue jeans and pointed out a random pair. "Want some new jeans?"

He pretended to think for a moment before answering. "Do women like blue jeans?"

For a few seconds, she seemed to be at a loss for words. "I reckon so…"

"Um…Do you like blue jeans?"

"I guess."

"Is that a yes?"

"I guess."

"Do ya think Jessica would like them?" He tried for a wistful sounding voice.

"I guess."

"Are you even listenin' to me?"

"I guess—I mean, of course." She jerked her attention back to him. "I always listen to you."

"Liar."

"Hey!"

"So…" He walked closer, found his size, and pulled out a pair of jeans, looking them over to see what design they were. "You really think Jessica would like them?"

"Sure, yeah." She nodded quickly. "She'll lose her freakin' mind."

"Oh, really?" he said amusedly. "Well in that case…" He pulled down three more pairs and looped them over his arm. "Now, pick me some shirts."

For Rogue it was better than staring off into space and thinking about his hands. Or his lips. Or his dimple or that little bit of hair on his chin. Or his—NO! She had to control herself! So without being told twice, she led the way over to the nearest rack and proceeded to search for clothes. Normally she wouldn't have put much effort into this, despite being asked for help, but today she needed to get her mind on other things. So she concentrated on finding the appropriate attire for Remy that would satisfy this Jessica woman.

Rogue wondered why she suddenly disliked the name. There was nothing that she could really find wrong with it other than it was just so…_Jessica_. Not a very original name. Why wasn't she named something like Cheyenne or Clementine or Toaster Oven? Those were all original names. Most especially Toaster Oven. Toaster Oven was NOT a name that you heard twice…or even once.

Rogue forced these thoughts out of her mind and commenced with the shopping, searching through the racks with a passion that only the likes of Kitty had ever displayed.

She found several things that would work. Different shirts of many different colors. She pulled out a red one and threw it at Remy, then tilting her head to the side to judge the color next to him, she bit her lip and then searched through the rack and pulled out a blue one. And then a gray one. And then a green one. Rogue soon realized that Remy looked good in every color. All except for that bright yellow one she held up to his head. Of course this could have been because there was a picture of a really creepy clown on it or because Remy flinched when he saw it and wouldn't let her hold it near him.

Finally she was satisfied with the enormous pile of clothes in Remy's arms that were currently weighing him down and told him to go try them on.

And now she waited. Waiting for a guy to try on clothes was much different than waiting for a girl, Rogue soon realized. While Kitty usually liked to put on the clothes and then stare at herself in the mirror for twenty minutes, walk back and forth to see how they felt when she walked, and liked to get other's approval before her purchase, Remy was the complete opposite. She had given him at least twenty shirts to try on. Before she could stop him, he jerked her into the dressing room with him and locked her in. For one wild moment she thought he was going to start undressing in front of her. But he had a white undershirt under his normal, ripped up blue shirt and he kept this on as he tried on all of the new ones.

And here was the difference between himself and someone like Kitty. He quickly threw on one shirt, turned to her and asked dully, "Is this good?"

"Uh, yeah, I reckon so-"

And before she had even finished he had torn that one off, flung it (inside out) over to the corner, and put on a new one, only to turn to her and ask, "What about this one?"

"Sure."

Remy jerked it over his head and then put on another one. "What about this?"

"Yes."

And this went on and on until he had tried on everything except for one shirt and all of his pants.

"Try on this outfit," she handed him the kaki pants and black dress shirt. He made a face before he finally shrugged.

"Ok."

Rogue left without being told and waited outside. He seemed to put these clothes on just as fast as the last ones and before long she heard his voice speaking to her through the closed stall door.

"Uh…Remy ain't sure about this one."

"Lemme see." She knocked lightly at the door but he didn't open it.

"I don't know."

"What? Just lemme see!"

He sighed as though she were being difficult. "All right, just…don't laugh. Ok?"

Why would she laugh? This outfit must look hilarious for him to say something like that. If he really looked that bad then she would most certainly laugh. But she couldn't let Remy know that. "Ok, I won't. Just come out here."

Remy grumbled and a moment later the metallic sound of the lock scraping in the door reached her ears and it opened slowly to reveal Remy looking very NOT hilarious. Rogue gulped. That damned kiss was back in her mind. But she couldn't let her thoughts bring her to places like that, especially when Remy was standing right in front of her and looking to her for approval. Why had he been afraid of her laughing? Oh. Now she remembered. Remy hated dressing up. He had never worn anything that would be described of as 'nice', or at least not when she had ever seen. He called tuxes 'penguin costumes' and said that ties were fashionable nooses. She had never seen him like this. She had never seen him looking so…_nice_.

And for a few seconds, Rogue almost did something crazy. The thoughts in her mind were not thoughts of a good friend. Suddenly she realized that some other woman named Jessica who was really stupid was going to see Remy in this outfit and know it was all for her. And it_ was_ for her. It wasn't for Rogue; Remy probably couldn't care less if Rogue found him attractive. He was trying to impress another woman and right at that moment, it made Rogue a tiny bit crazy inside.

It would be very easy to take this away from 'Jessica'. All Rogue had to do was tell him that it didn't look that good. She could practically hear herself saying: _'I just don't think it's your color, Rems. No, no, collared shirts just ain't your thing. Why? Oh, because they make your head look big. I would just go put this outfit back and find somethin else. I think I saw somethin yellow that might look good on you._'

It would be so easy. Too easy. Remy was looking very uncomfortable in this new getup and unsure.

But she couldn't do it. It would hurt Remy's feelings and that was a level of low that she wasn't ready to stoop to over a crush that she had had for fourteen hours.

"You look very handsome." She told him honestly and stepping forward, she reached up to straighten out his collar for him.

He immediately brightened and grinned down at her. "Really?"

Blinking, she quickly averted her gaze from the newly formed dimple on his cheek. "Of course." She cleared her throat when her treacherous voice started trying to shake. But something about the way Remy smelled made her want to take a deeper breath…She swiped at some invisible lint on his shoulder.

"You really like it, chère? You think Jessica will like it?"

That was starting to get seriously annoying. But Rogue took a step back and nodded. "Yes and yes."

Remy grinned.

"Why are you smiling like that?"

"No reason." He continued to grin stupidly as he turned and walked back into the stall, closing the door behind him.

**To Be Continued...**


	13. That Summer Heat Sure is Diabolical

**A/N: Thanks so much for the reviews! Have a safe weekend. :)**

**Remy's Diabolical Plan**

**Chapter Thirteen: That Summer Heat Sure is Diabolical**

**~X~**

Rogue clicked her tongue impatiently. Life, at that exact moment in time, was quite the annoying affair. Right in the midst of summer, it was predictably hot but today seemed to be hotter than any other day thus far. Sweat trickled down her temples in little rivulets and accumulated in uncomfortable places such as under her arms and the backs of her knees and under her hair. Speaking of which, she had yet to get it cut; mostly because she had been too lazy. But it would have to be cut soon. All it ever did was sit up in a tied ponytail on her head anyway.

But it wouldn't matter if she cut off all of hair and decided to take off all her clothes and around naked. The day would still be hotter than the six shades of hell. When they had stepped out of the house that morning they had all groaned gone back in to the nice air conditioning. Everyone except for Amara who had yet to come back inside.

Unfortunately, Rogue knew Scott. And unfortunately, Scott was the type of person who was together and didn't like to leave things until the last minute. So most unfortunately of all, he had recruited (or more _forced_. They had drawn straws.) Rogue into going to the store with him and buying the 'necessary' items for the fourth of July.

The third of July was _not_ the best day to go shopping. Though this was the time when you could get the best deals in the store, this was also the time when there were insane people out looking for bargains in the store. The fourth of July was America's birthday; the day that their ancestors had declared independence for all of America. So what better way to celebrate this that to grill steaks, eat potato salad, go swimming, get drunk, and burn down houses with explosives?

Ok, the 'burning down houses with explosives' wasn't on purpose. But it did happen. Mostly because everyone was drunk off of alcoholic beverages and their country's freedom.

Rogue was afraid of going to the store with all the crazy people. So when she and Scott had driven here, he had carefully laid out a whole extensive plan for them to follow. He would go in and buy the food. She would go out and buy the fireworks. Rogue had no idea how to pick out fireworks but she had agreed to this anyway.

Now she regretted that decision. The weather was blisteringly hot, she was sweating like a pig, her ponytail was sticking to the back of her neck, and a menacing looking wasp kept flying around and around her head, buzzing loudly and making her very nervous. A police officer had parked in the NO PARKING zone in front of the store and was leaning against his car, watching them all as though anyone was really going to commit a crime while he stood and watched. But he kept looking at Rogue and this made her even more nervous than the wasp. Why was he staring at her? She rolled her shoulders uncomfortably and kept her gaze from locking with his.

The sun continued to beat down on her skin and she worried that it would burn if she stood her for another few minutes. But the man in front of her was the most annoying thing about this day so far. The fireworks stand they were in front of had one man inside, working with the costumer she was waiting behind.

"What's that one do?" The skinny, balding, middle aged in front of her asked, pointing out a random pack of fireworks.

The younger man working in the stand responded dully, "That one shoots in the air and blows up, sir."

"Ahuh," the man nodded thoughtfully before pointing out something else. "And what's this one do?"

"That one shoots in the air and blows up, sir." The man responded again, sounding very much like he would like to die at that point.

"And what's this one do?"

"I think that one shoots in the air and blows up."

"Oh, good, good. And this one?"

"It shoots in the air and blows up."

"How about this one?"

Rogue ground her teeth together. If that cop wasn't there, she would have been _very_ tempted to reach out and drain the man dead already. He had asked the _same_ question only about five hundred times. And the man working in the stand wasn't helping at all. She wished sourly that he would suggest something to the dumb, brain-dead costumer. Instead the man kept asking, and asking, and asking, and the temperature was getting hotter and the wasp was flying closer and the cop was continuing to stare and now some strange young man was coming over and smiling at her.

If this torture didn't end soon, Rogue was going to _kill_ someone for revenge, and then she was going to kill someone just for kicks.

"Hi." The young man that had come to stand behind her was tapping on her shoulder. She turned halfway to regard him, perhaps a little rudely because she was still incredibly annoyed.

"What?" She snapped impatiently.

But her reaction didn't faze him in the least. He continued to smile and stare at her in awe. "I just wanted to say," He breathed, "You are so beautiful."

She blinked. Surely she had heard wrong. Perhaps the heat was getting to her worse than she thought. Normally she would have thought he was over doing it a bit. Beautiful? Her? No. She was a plain Jane with nothing especially different about her. But today she doubted his words even more. It wasn't a joke saying that she was sweating like a pig. She _was_ sweating like a pig and right in that moment she felt like one.

"What?"

"You're beautiful." The young man repeated, a little more firmly this time. "Your hair and your skin and your eyes—they're all so beautiful, everything about you is!"

"Uh-" He was over doing it. Either he was blind or he really wanted to get some. Rogue just wasn't sure which. Although she _was_ touched by his meaningless and untruthful babble. It was always nice to be called beautiful, most especially on a day when you certainly didn't feel it. "Thank you." She told him sincerely, feeling very embarrassed by his compliments.

"It's really hot out here, huh?" He commented and stuck his hands in his pockets.

"Yes," she sighed miserably before turning back around to face the stand. It seemed the stupid costumer was almost out of things to point to.

"Is that wasp bothering you? I could kill it if you want?" The boy behind her offered.

"It's fine." She lied.

"My name's Jack."

"The ripper?"

"Huh?"

"Nothin." She said quickly. "Nice to meet you."

"Do you want to go shoot some pool with me later?"

"Uh-" she tried to think of a reason that she couldn't. Not because he didn't seem nice or friendly and he was kind of cute, but because…she didn't like to date. Three crappy evenings with three crappy guys had been enough to put her off of _that_ forever. Seriously, who made this crap up anyway? Who actually enjoyed this?

But then Remy came to her mind. Remy, with his new wardrobe and his secretive smile and his dimple that always came with said smile. Remy who now was the cause of several erotic dreams as of last night. Remy, who was in love with some woman whom she had never met before, and was probably incredibly stupid if you asked Rogue. Remy was happy and in love. Rogue was stuck listening to his stupid sappy comments and seeing his infuriating dimple-inducing grin. It seemed every other thing Remy said lately had to do with Jessica and every time he said that name it made Rogue want to punch any woman she met named Jessica.

Now Rogue had two choices. She could either remain single and not go out with anyone and keep stewing in her own jealousy and depression, or she could go out with Jack the Ripper and maybe get her mind off of Remy and hopefully be slightly less miserable.

She thought.

She thought really hard.

For about two seconds.

"No, I can't today; sorry."

"What about tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow's a holiday."

"The next day?"

"I got plans that day."

"What about the one after that?"

"I got plans then, too."

"Ok…what about next Friday?"

Rogue sighed. Wasn't there something about next Friday that was special? She couldn't quite remember…Oh yeah. Remy had said that he was going to give Jessica a call on Friday because it was her birthday. Suddenly she knew that getting out of the house that day was imperative.

"You know what?" She said thoughtfully without turning around to look at him. "That sounds peachy. Lemme get you my number…"

"And what does this one do?" The man in front of them pointed out to the last thing in front of him.

The younger man behind the stand jerked awake. "Oh what? Oh, that." He yawned and stretched his arms above his head lazily. "It flies in the air and blows up."

"Well!" The costumer seemed very unsatisfied. "If that's all your fireworks do then I'm not going to waste my time or money on any of them!" He huffed angrily and then spun on his heel and stomped off.

Without thinking, Rogue jerked the biggest firework off of the counter of the stand, lit it, and fired it right at the back of the man's head. Or…at least, this was what she imagined she was doing. In reality, she was watching the rude man walk off with a look of utter confusion and revulsion etched across her face. If she _ever_ ran into him again, she _would_ kill him. But right now she was just going to buy some fireworks.

She stepped forward with a feeling of accomplishment, as though she had been waiting her whole life for her turn and finally it was here. When it was over a hundred degrees and swelteringly hot, twenty minutes did seem like a lifetime. The man behind the counter just blinked at her in boredom and gave her a slight grunt of acknowledgment that supposedly meant hello in grunt language. For half a second she contemplated saying, "What does this one do?" just to annoy him.

But it was too hot for that. She pointed out the most ridiculously priced and biggest pack of fireworks and after she paid for them, the man hauled the big pack onto the counter.

"Need help with that?" The young man asked from behind her. Already she had forgotten his name and so she simply waved him off.

"I'm fine." The package was as tall as she was and twice as wide but she was an X-man! And X-men…could lift fireworks if they wanted. Or…something like that but with a cooler sound that emphasized how much her muscles were worked out from constant danger room sessions. Rogue was strong. So she lifted the package up. Only to find that it wasn't actually heavy, just very big and hard to carry. But she would not accept help from any of these men. Never!

So she ended up dragging the big package of fireworks to the car. And then she had a hell of time getting it in the trunk. Suddenly she really wished that Jubilee was there. With her around, there was never any need to buy fireworks.

Scott arrived just as she had finally been able to close the trunk and predictably, he had only bought the bare essentials.

"No sodas?" She tried not to sound whiny.

"Water will do." He said happily.

"No beer?"

He gasped. "Rogue! You're underage!"

"Yeah, in this country." She grumbled as she helped him load groceries into the backseat.

Scott just sent her a disapproving look. He might have pressed this issue further but it was too hot to stand outside and argue so they quickly loaded up and then jumped in the car, turning up the air conditioner as hard as it would go.

"Ah…" Rogue relaxed into her seat and shut her eyes. As long as that cool air was blowing on her, she was in heaven.

"When we get home, I have something for you to do."

She tried very hard not to groan. "What?"

"I want you and Remy both to write down the events of the other night. You saw these people and I need every detail possible to hand in to the police."

She grunted and didn't open in her eyes. Instead she concentrated on the cool air on her sweaty neck…

"Remy should already be writing his report. That was the mission I gave him before we left the house."

Rogue cracked an eye open to look at his profile. He wasn't looking at her, instead (thankfully) looking out at the road as he drove and he looked excited at the prospect of catching the culprits. Kind of like a puppy. Rogue titled her head to side as she took him in. He was just sitting there, talking about the mission, all bright eyed and bushy tailed…

"-and I typed it all up on the library computer." He was saying. "Just answer the questions it asks and that should be enough. Don't forget _every detail_. Even the tiniest thing could help us."

She was sure that Remy was having SO much fun with this back at home. She smirked. Oh yes, surely Remy was loving this mission.

**~X~**

Remy groaned. This mission sucked! This wasn't even a mission. And he hadn't even started yet. It was just the thought of starting that annoyed him. He would rather be annoying Kurt or thinking of evil plans or reading _Diabolical Seduction_. Not actually doing his job!

But he had to do it before Scott got back from the store. Groaning again, Remy forced himself to sit on his bed and stared at the paper in his hand. The first line read: **Not leaving anything out, from start to finish, explain everything that happened last night in explicit detail**.

What other question could Scott have possibly thought of after _explain everything_? What else was there to explain after you had explained _everything_? Now Remy wished that they hadn't told him they had seen the lobster thieves night before last night. Scott became way too excited when more work presented itself.

Groaning for a third time, Remy picked up a pen and tapped it against the paper. What exactly had happened last night? All he could remember was kissing Rogue. Did Scott want that detail too? Maybe, but Remy was sure that Rogue would not want anyone to know about that so he refrained from writing it. He continued to stare at the paper, the bold words that Scott had typed up becoming blurred in his vision.

Was Rogue thinking about that kiss as much as he was? Probably not. She seemed completely normal. Remy sighed, depressed. The only thing he could think to do now was keep talking about 'Jessica' and hope that it would drive Rogue crazy. But that didn't seem to be working either. Nothing seemed to be working.

But he had to keep trying, he had to think of something new or else he was always going to be this sad. He blinked. The paper was still in his hand but he had completely forgotten about it. Groaning yet again, Remy started writing.

_Boring night, real quiet. Lobster trap breaker/lobster thief people showed up but then ran away when they saw we were mutants. They didn't come back again. _

There. That summed up the night pretty well. How much more descriptive could you get than _that_?

Remy turned the page to look at the next thing Scott had typed. **In GREAT detail, please explain what the perps looked like.**

Remy smirked. The 'perps'?

_I only really looked at one of them. Brown hair, long legs, and big breasts. And there was another woman with slightly bigger breasts. Everyone else had normal sized breasts. All except for those guys that were there. They didn't have any breasts._

That was good, very good. Remy nodded in approval of his own work. He really was very observant when it came to these things.

The next line from Scott read: **Did you happen to see any getaway car/vehicle/bikes that they drove? If so, explain.**

_Nope. They ran away._

**Did they ever threaten you verbally or physically? Did they pull out any weapons?**

_Not that I can remember. _

**Are you sure you've put down EVERYTHING that happened last night? If there's anything more you'd like to ass, write it here. **

Remy snorted loudly. Obviously, Scott had a typo there at the end and had failed to notice it. He bent double laughing, wrinkling the papers in his hand as he went. He wasn't sure how he did it, but eventually he was able to get himself under control enough to write: _Scott, I only see you as a friend and frankly, you're not my type. If you want someone to ass you, go to Jean. _

There. All done. What a lovely report. Remy happily relaxed into his chair and continued chuckling quietly at Scott's blunder.

**To Be Continued...**


	14. Remy is Diabolically Evil!

**A/N: Chapters will be coming every other week for the foreseeable future :) Thanks so much for the reviews!**

**Remy's Diabolical Plan**

**Chapter Fourteen: Remy is Diabolically Evil!**

**~X~**

Remy sat at the kitchen island peacefully eating his breakfast. So far this morning, everything was quiet. Only half of the inhabitants of the house were up, but it was still strange for all of them to be so silent. Kurt was standing in front of the stove and flipping pancakes in a frying pan. Kitty was pouring everyone a glass of orange juice and while chatting to Rogue, who sat across from him and looked like her normal early morning grumpy self.

"Oh Rogue, I have a something to tell you!" Kitty sang in a sing-song voice.

"What?" Rogue grunted.

Kitty hopped happily across the kitchen and sat in a stool next to Rogue's. The bubbly girl's ponytail bounced behind her as she talked and Remy noticed with some interest that Kurt turned halfway from the stove to watch it as though mesmerized.

"Ok, so like, remember last night before we went to sleep and you left the room to go brush your teeth?"

Rogue narrowed her eyes in Kitty's direction. "Yes," she said as though she _really_ did not want to hear the answer. It was all too obvious when Kitty was up to something.

Kitty giggled and then reached for her glass of orange juice, bringing it to her mouth and drinking it with deliberate slowness. Remy smirked when he noticed Rogue's eyes narrow a little more. She was getting annoyed.

"Ah, that's nice." Kitty placed the glass back down in front of her and slowly lifted a napkin to pat over her mouth. She paused when she saw Rogue glaring at her. "Oh yeah! I almost forgot you! So you remember that, right?"

"_Yes_," Rogue hissed.

Remy grinned. She really did hate the morning time. It was so endearing. Or at least he thought so.

"So I was lying there, right, and I like heard your phone ring." Kitty looked very mischievous.

Rogue's face paled underneath the light sunburn dusting her cheeks. "What have you _done_?"

"Oh, nothing!" Kitty grinned brightly. "I just talked to Jack and invited him to our Fourth of July cookout today!"

"WHAT!" Remy and Rogue both screamed at the same time. Everyone turned to Remy at this, including Rogue, who seemed to have forgotten that she was mad at Kitty for just that second and instead was looking in confusion at the man across from her.

Remy cleared his throat awkwardly and looked around at everyone. There had to be something that he could say to not make himself look stupid. Or to make Rogue think that he was at all opposed to her dating someone named Jack. Not that he even knew who Jack was or knew that Rogue was even dating him. After all, she might not be. But still…Remy didn't like hearing her name in the same sentence with another male's. It made him feel all…twitchy.

"Uh…" He said slowly, looking around at all of their staring faces. "Kitty!" He decided to stop his gaze on her. "You! That is just-just rude! How dare you do that to Rogue?"

They all still continued to stare. Finally Kurt turned away to flip his pancake but then turned back to look at him again. Rogue stared at him for another moment before turning back to Kitty. "He's right. You've gone too far, Kitty."

"How have I gone too far?" Kitty argued. "He said you two had a date on Friday."

"What!" Remy slammed a hand to the tiled surface of the island.

Once again, they all turned to look at him. Rogue's expression was confused and annoyed, but Kitty wore a secretive little smirk while Kurt seemed to be contemplating him through narrowed eyes.

Remy thought quickly. "-are you thinkin', Kitty?" He finished lamely. "Like Remy said, it's rude."

Rogue shook her head quickly before turning back to Kitty. "Un-invite him!"

Kitty looked like someone had just taken a present away. "What! NO! Why?"

"Because I don't want him here." Rogue crossed her arms over her chest and scowled. "Stop tryin to set me up all the time! You _do_ know that some people actually enjoy being single, don't you?"

"Yeah!" Remy agreed.

"Rogue, _come on_!" Kitty wasn't backing down. "Don't be such a stick in the mud all the time. Having him over won't hurt you and it won't be a big deal. I invited Adam over; will that make you feel better?"

Three things happened in that moment. Rogue screamed, "NO!" Before looking confused and asking, "Who is Adam?" Kurt jerked his head around to stare intently at Kitty, and Tabitha came into the kitchen and said, "Pancakes _again_?" Remy was just wondering when and where they had found all of these boys.

"Adam's that guy that we met on the beach that day." Kitty answered Rogue. "Remember?"

Now that she thought about it, Rogue did remember. It was the boy with the red hair who had given her such an uneasy feeling. She couldn't remember much else about him other than that feeling he had given her.

"Unfortunately," she growled in a way that was reminiscent to Wolverine.

"Hey!" Kitty looked offended. "He was nice. But whatever, he'll be here tonight and he'll give you and me and Jack some company!"

"Oh dear god," Rogue covered her face with her hands and groaned.

The world was over. Just ask Remy. This was the end. This was where all of his dreams were shattered and all the flowers died. That _boy_ was going to come in and sweep Rogue off of her feet and take her away, he was sure of it. Well, then again…maybe not if he had anything to do with it. Remy grinned evilly. Oh yes, things would be dealt with, LeBeau style.

"Kurt," he said happily, "you're pancakes are burnin'."

**~X~**

Kurt was a simple person.

He didn't like to argue and he didn't like to fight. He was the kind of person that could have a friendly conversation with just about anyone and make you like him without really trying.

And most people did like Kurt. He was nice and friendly and enjoyed making people laugh. It didn't take much to please him because he wasn't very high maintenance. How Remy and Rogue ended up screaming at one other every other day, he didn't know. He supposed it was because they were both so…passionate about…uh…their own opinions and beliefs. They didn't mind fighting. Kurt would do almost anything to avoid a fight. He liked being the kind of person that anyone could feel that they could easily talk to.

And honestly he couldn't say that he cared very much to argue, even if it was something that he really believed in. He just didn't feel like exerting the energy into it. Why fight when you could be peaceful and _not_ scream your head off?

As nice and peaceful as Kurt was, he was also a very confused young man. There were several things that confused him. One the things that confused him the most was when his friends tried to say that pancakes and waffles were the same thing. They weren't the same thing! Not by a long shot. Waffles had those little squares and they were drier and they tended to get a little crusty around the edges when left too long. But pancakes…Kurt's mouth watered. Pancakes were soft and fluffy and the butter melted over them so easily, making it taste just right so that you could slowly pour some hot maple syrup all over them—

Kurt shook his head quickly. He couldn't let himself fall into a daydream while he was supposed to be cooking over a fiery grill. The results would most likely not be pretty.

But it was hard not to start dreaming about pancakes. It was one of the only things he ever fantasized about. Well, that and…But he wouldn't think about that. After reaching down and flipping over the steaks in front of him, Kurt nonchalantly scanned the backyard.

There was Scott, sitting on the deck steps next to Amara and having a friendly conversation. Jean was closer by, watering one of the rose bushes before bending and breathing in its scent. The only thing that Kurt could smell was the charcoal smell from the grill and the usual salty smell of the ocean air. It being twilight, the sun was almost down and the fireflies were flying over their heads. And judging by Tabitha's yelp, one had just flown into her face.

Kurt continued to look around and nearly jumped out of his fur when he noticed Remy had silently come to stand next to him.

He gasped. "Holy shi-"

"Its nice night out, dontcha' think?" Remy asked casually as he shuffled his deck of cards around in his hands.

"I guess." Kurt breathed slowly as he tried to get his heart rate under control. "Why are you sneaking up on me like that? And why do you look so evil?"

Remy grinned. "Oh, nothin, nothin. Did you see Rogue's date?"

Kurt's mood immediately darkened. "Yes. And Kitty's too. I think they're around front on the beach."

"Of course they are." Remy continued to grin. "The beach is romantic."

Kurt's face twisted into a sour expression but he didn't have any reply to this. Instead he studied Remy suspiciously. "Why do you seem so happy? I thought you…" _ Had a thing for Rogue_ was what Kurt wanted to say. But no one had ever actually spoken of this out loud. Kurt honestly wasn't even sure if anyone else knew about it. He himself had just started noticing it.

Remy had no idea that anyone else knew. He was sure that his secret was just that—a secret. And that was why he was confused by Kurt's half question.

"You thought what?" He asked curiously.

Kurt actually thought about calling him out on it for a few moments before he changed his mind. What good would it do anyway? Remy would just deny it. "Nothing." He said before picking up the steaks in front of him and flipping them over.

Remy shrugged. "Ok…so…I see you got your best face on."

Kurt glared. But not just because of the teasing insult. On a hot summer day like this, when they were all relaxing and having fun, there was nothing more that he would like to do other than turn off his image inducer and feel the sun and that ocean breeze on his fur and be comfortable. But Kitty had decided to invite two _normal _people so that meant that he couldn't do what he wanted.

"You still didn't answer my question." He changed the subject. "Why do you look like-"

"Sorry, gotta go!" Remy turned and raced off, leaving a very suspicious Kurt behind.

Around front, Rogue was trying to count how many sea gulls were in that bunch that had just flown over their heads. One, two, three, four, five, blah, blah, blah, fifteen, and…was it sixteen or seventeen? She would be able to count them properly if they would just stop moving! And now they were out of sight. Rogue sighed and looked for something else to occupy her attention. Where had that stray cat gone? There had been one walking around the place earlier and it hadn't hesitated to leave them a 'gift' in the form of a dead mouse on the doorstep. Then later, it had left another 'gift' of a different kind on the driveway that Scott had stepped in. Rogue hated cats but she kind of liked this one; it was funny.

But the cat was nowhere to be seen at the moment so she would have to find something else interesting. She could always pay attention to whatever Kitty was chatting on about but it was probably something that would make her ears bleed anyway. Or she could actually look at her date. But then this would lead to another chorus of, "You're so beautiful! The beach is so lovely! Don't you love summer? I do! Wow, you're friends are so nice!"

There was nothing wrong with being enthusiastic…unless you were the kind of person that was enthusiastic about _every_. _Single_. _Little_. _Thing_. At this point, Rogue was kind of scared to look his way lest he start in on how deep and full of life her eyes were. This grated at her nerves. Her eyes were not deep and full of life, her eyes were _green_.

And Kitty's date…That same uneasy feeling came back when he re-introduced himself. She wanted to get away from him, away from his creepy leering eyes and his weird smile that for some reason made the back of her neck itch. And Kitty…Rogue didn't know what Kitty was talking about. She had blocked out her voice ten minutes ago.

"Blah, blah, blah, blah blah!" Her date was saying. Ok, her date wasn't saying that. This was just what her non listening mind told her he was saying. He smiled and nudged her lightly with an elbow before going on. "Blah, blah?" He laughed. "Blah, blah, blah, blah, BLAH!"

Rogue flinched. Was he really saying blah now? She had been pretending for so long that this was what he really was saying, that her mind was now telling her that this was all he could say.

Kitty nodded, seemingly agreeing with Rogue's date and replied. "Blah! Like, blah, blah, blah! Blah, blah, blah, like, blah and blah."

That confirmed it. They really were just speaking nonsense now. But she continued to robotically smile and nod along, even though she thought it very strange that they were just talking the way they were.

Kitty's date looped an arm casually around Kitty's shoulder and Rogue's eye twitched for some reason. He smiled at Rogue, winked, and said, "Blah, blah, blah, I'm creepy, blah, blah."

And now she _really_ wanted to leave.

She stood quickly from her seat on the porch step and said, "Let's go out back and see what everyone else is up to." But she was pretty sure it came out more like, "Let's go blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."

"Ok!" Jack the Ripper—or her date—said happily as he too stood up with her. "That sounds great! I bet if the front of this place looks this nice, I can't wait to see the back!"

Rogue didn't waste too much brain power on thinking about how that statement made no sense. Instead, she walked as quickly as she could around the house and through the gate to enter the backyard. The first thing she noticed was the delicious smell wafting through the air from the grill that Kurt was standing in front of. He looked up as they came over, nodding lightly in acknowledgment. Second was Tabitha running away from an on-coming firefly. And third was the incredibly annoying chirping from her date.

"Oh WOW! This place is stunning! Look at those flowers! And smell that honeysuckle! And whatever's cooking smells GREAT!"

Rogue fought back the whimper that threatened to come from her. Instead she rubbed her temples to drive back the oncoming headache. Kurt lifted an eyebrow and tried not to look too interested.

"That house is huge! Do you own it? OOO are those hibiscus?"

"I'm thirsty!" Rogue burst, perhaps a little crazily. She couldn't help that her eyes were wide and every line of her body was drawn and tense and her hair was a little messy now that she had knotted her fingers through it in agitation. She wasn't going to _try_ to help it. The man needed to know that he was driving her up the wall.

"Please," she tried in a slightly calmer (but still strained) voice. "Will you go get me a drink? They're in the cooler on the porch." If he didn't get away from her at that moment, it would most certainly be detrimental to his health…not to mention her sanity.

"Sure!" He responded brightly as though he had been waiting all night for her to ask this of him. Smiling, he walked off, leaving a very harassed feeling Rogue and a snickering Kurt. Rogue just watched his retreating form and somehow even the back of his head looked like it was smiling at her.

There was a shiny, giant fork sitting on the shelf of the grill that Kurt had been using to flip the steaks over with. Rogue's hand inched toward the pointy and possibly deadly object of it's own accord. It would be so easy…to just pick up the fork and toss it in his direction…and it wasn't like anyone was looking. Except that everyone was in the backyard and Kurt was slowly pulling the fork out of her reach.

Snapping out of her daydream, Rogue turned to Kurt desperately. "Hide me!"

"Right!" Kurt replied seriously. He reached over and opened the lid of the grill, releasing a cloud of smoke. "You get in here and I'll close it over you!"

"Kurt." She deadpanned.

"Before you say no, just think about it! It's the perfect plan! He'll be so busy looking for you, he'll never guess that you're on fire!"

Growling, she waved a hand in his direction before marching away. "Oh, so much help you are! Thanks for nothin."

"You're welcome." He said solemnly, pretending it was a compliment.

Rogue ran. Rogue ran quickly.

**~X~**

Devious, diabolical, and maniacal. These were all words that Remy was fond of. Mostly because at some point in his life, all three of these things had been used when speaking of him. Remy was devious, Remy was certainly diabolical, and Remy LeBeau was definitely maniacal.

Like, for instance, right now. It was a very evil thing to do, coming up so nicely to this seemingly friendly boy. It was not by any means considered nice to tell lies or manipulate or make one look stupid. But, as the saying goes, don't eat the yellow snow. And as the saying goes that actually pertains to this situation, all is fair in love and war.

Remy had never understood this saying…until now. He was going to win. He was going to get Rogue. And no freakishly enthusiastic boy was going to stop him. And it didn't matter if Rogue actually liked him back or not. He wasn't going to let this guy even think he had a chance.

The guy was heading for the cooler on the porch with a joyful expression on his face. Remy headed over in that direction also, leaning up against the wall of the house next to the drinks and trying to look cool. Wait, what was he thinking? He didn't try to look cool—it was just inevitable that Remy look cool with everything he did. It was a just a God-given gift he possessed.

So Remy (looking cool) pulled out a single card and flipped it around easily over the backs of his fingers. This, of course, made him look ten times cooler and the boy stopped to stare at this move with a look of fascination.

"Wow," he breathed, "That's amazing! Can you show me how to do that?"

"Oh, this?" Remy asked casually as he repeated the move.

"Yeah, it's really cool!"

Remy grinned. That was just what he had been thinking.

"All you do," he started to explain the boy leaned forward, "is hold the card in your hand-"

"Hold the card in your hand," the younger man murmured in concentration.

"-then look at it and think _really_ hard-"

"Think really hard…"

"And if you want it bad enough, bam! You can do it!"

The boy looked a bit confused by this, and smiled uncertainly. "Uh…wait, can you explain it again?"

"So, you're Rogue's date?" Remy asked as though he hadn't heard his question.

"Yes!" He dropped the confused look and now donned a bright and happy one.

"Ah…Rogue." Remy dropped his eyes back to card in his hand, studying it thoughtfully. "It's a weird name, don't you think?"

"Oh, no, not at all! I find it refreshingly original!"

Remy lifted his eyes from the card in his hand to look at the boy's bright face…The bright face that he really wanted to punch. That was the same thing that he had said to Rogue when she had told him her name! Of course, when he had said it, he had been half joking. But seriously, Rogue was a weird name. He knew that her real name was Anna but she pinched anyone who called her that. And her pinches hurt.

"Right." He replied simply, deciding on not punching the young man in front of him. "Well, 'for you go, there are a few things about Rogue that you should know…"

**To Be Continued...**


End file.
